A tale of Richard III: The white boar and the devil black
by Harold Saxon
Summary: Richard III dies at the hand of Henry Tudor on the battlefield of Bosworth, only to find himself resurrected by Margaret, the defeated Lancastrian queen turned mad witch. As the thread of fate that connects his life with the events that took place in heaven before his birth begins to unravel, Richard finally realizes that there is more at stake than only his own damned soul.
1. prologue I

**The white boar and the devil black.**

A tale of Richard III after Bosworth.

 **Summary**

Based on Shakespeare's play and BBC The hollow crown adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of Richard III.

Richard III of England dies at the hand of Henry Tudor on the battlefield of Bosworth, only to find himself resurrected and kept prisoner by Margaret, the defeated Lancastrian queen turned mad witch. She taunts him that she had struck a bargain with the devil for his soul. Richard escapes and finds himself entangled in a series of horrific misadventures. As the thin thread of fate that connects his life with the events that took place in heaven before his birth begins to unravel, Richard finally realizes that not only his own soul is at stake: The course of his actions after Bosworth will also have dire consequences for the rest of humankind.

 **Notes**

Based on Shakespeare's play and BBC The hollow crown adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of Richard III. It could be considered a sequel to Shakespear's Richard III.

 **Epilogue**

 **Bosworth, 1485**

I am Richard Plantagenet, the youngest surviving son of the Duke of York, who was once made Duke of Gloucester, and was later hailed Lord Protector of England after the early demise of my brother king Edward. I was also known to my countless enemies as "Richard the evil, deformed, uprooting hog" or "that bottled spider" or "evil detestable tyrant", or simply "vile murderer" or more hysterically "that bended dick" and many, many more of these highly imaginative and not so very pleasant titles.

However, history as you would know it, mostly knows me as king Richard of England, the third of his name. By the time you read these lines, I must be dead already for over hundreds of years.

This is the story of my untimely death. More importantly, it is also the story of all the incredible, highly implausible, and to be honest, utterly mad things that came after my demise.

I died at Bosworth.

No one had prepared this tyrant king for his death.

Not my proud father, the duke of York, who had taught me to ride my barbed steed and hold my lance up high to strike down fiercely at the enemy soldiers who were scattering like frightened little mice before the hooves of my galloping beast.

Yet, much to my anger and frustration, right in the heat of battle, my fearsome beast became stuck in marshy grounds. I was unhorsed by a lowly foot soldier, who held on to my leg and dragged me down into the mud with him.

Neither had my demise been prepared for by my kingly brother Edward, who had taught me to fight and survive. He had trained me to slash and hack through the advancing army of hostile men with such mad ferocious efficiency, that they all dropped like sacks of bloody fruit around me.

Yet this could not protect me from the axe that was wielded outside my view. The blade came crushing down in the back of my head, making a sickening sound as it splintered my skull.

It was certainly not my dear, _dear_ brother George, who had taught me to drop on my knees, shaking in horror and pain.

My vision was blackening fast as blood gushed out of the hideous head wound and flooded down my neck into my armor. I was still holding on to my sword, trembling like a leaf and drawing in ragged, painful breaths, when Richmond appeared, the dark vision of my final fate. He knocked me back with his boot, felling me to the ground. The sudden blow hit the last breath of air out of my lungs. Grimacing, I screwed my eyes up to the wide open skies, and saw that the radiant sun of York had been swallowed up by clouds that were grey, dull, and cold.

Oh, how I had muddled up my life.

On hindsight, this would have been the perfect time for reflection. A short moment of calm revelation, of genuine repent, spurred on by my anxiety for the reaper's swift approach that would impel me to pray for my soul. But then again, I probably would need to recite the entire repertoire of prayers known to Christianity to get something so rotten and weighted down by sin to rise anywhere even halfway to heaven. Not an easy task. Certainly not a very brief task. Somehow, I didn't think I had that much time left.

Indeed, Richmond's shadow soon loomed. He removed his helmet to reveal the noble features of a most eager man. He was younger than me, much better in fighting shape, and was my replacement on the throne in the eyes of a God who had abandoned me a long, _long_ time ago.

How I envied that little prick.

Look at him, gloating in all the time and potential he still had for his turn on this earth. How utterly unfair that Richmond could still become a kinder, wiser, and more beloved king than I ever had the chance to be! How could it even be that the same flames of ambition that had burnt my heart to a cinder and had brought me nothing but ruin, was now showering this clueless idiot with excellent fortune, boundless loyalty and garlanded glory?

But then I caught the gleam in his eyes, a mad covetous gaze that I recognized far too well from my own reflection. The golden round I still wore on my head must shine at this ridiculous glorious youth like a jewel at a magpie. The English crown, that most fatal of trophies, was luring him in to come wreck himself on the sharp rocky coast that was the treacherous royal throne.

Perhaps…he would not make for a better king after all. Ruthless ambition seldom had the time nor the patience to be just or kind. I should not envy, but pity the young fool really.

With that final thought providing me very little comfort, the usurper raised his sword, and drove it deep into the base of my throat.

The last thing I remembered was that I wanted to scream, but the only sound I produced was a frightened gargle as I tasted my own warm blood, welling up in the back of my throat. The rest of it was seeping out fast, turning the muddy pool in which I lay into a bloody mess.

That was how I learned to die, on the cold fields of Bosworth, all by myself.

And that really, should have been the end of me.

But alas, heaven did not know such pity, but rather a cosmic sort of humor that bordered on the sadistic.

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

I know why you are here.

I know whose story you want to hear.

I beg you, please be patient, and indulge me for just a little while, for what I am going to tell you is important to that story.

Shut your eyes.

Imagine a place that is infinitely large, shrouded by clouds that bathe in a white light. It is a light that is as old and eternal as the very atoms that make up everything in this universe, including you and me.

This place is heaven, and in heaven you see two angels. One has wings the color of midnight. The other has wings with a more contemporary white color.

Both of them are sitting down, facing a golden box.

They have not been told what is inside that box, only to watch over it, and never to open it. As it is in the nature of angels to obey their lord and to never question his actions, they simply did what was asked. For centuries, they acted as the protectors of the relic, dutifully guarding it from anyone who wanted to steal a curious peek inside.

And just like that, thousands of years went by.

The earth turned. The people that God had created spread over the lands. They picked up shiny stones and sticks to make axes and spears, then arrows and swords. They elected strong leaders to help guide them to fertile lands, but then their leaders confiscated all of that land and drew lines in the soil, putting down borders and walls. First in wood and stone, later in ink and paper.

The concepts of property and nation were born, and with these came everything that became the rotten core of human society.

As greed settled into the hearts and minds of the humans, and drove them into quarrels, then fights, and later, devastating wars, one of the angels saw what was happening, and slowly became more and more disheartened by it all.

"Why does our father do nothing about this?" The angel with the black wings asked. "They are killing each other, and for what? For handfuls of dust! It is irrational! It is utterly grotesque!"

"Are you watching the humans again?" The other, white winged angel responded. "We are supposed to keep an eye on this relic over here."

"I am keeping an eye on it, but I can't just shut my eyes on what is going on down below. This cannot be in our lord's plan."

The other angel shrugged in return. "The humans create their own fate. We are not supposed to meddle with their affairs. My dear brother, why don't you stop thinking about it, and keep yourself on the task at hand?"

The angel with the black wings tried very hard, but it was impossible not to be distracted. Of the two guardians, he was the most kind of heart, and once he had acknowledged the existence of the world's evil, he could no longer keep it out of his mind. So for decades he pondered, questioning the nature of these strange biped apes, who always seemed to try so hard to create their own version of hell on earth, while God had provided them with all they needed to create paradise. When his intellect failed to provide him with a rational answer, the angel started doubting his own purpose.

"Why are we even here?" He asked a century or two later. "Why do we have to guard this relic, while down on earth so much suffering is taking place? We have been gifted by our father to perform the most remarkable miracles! We can let it rain on parched lands to save the peasants from starvation. We can stop one army from slaughtering another by sending down a flock of birds to scare the men off the battlefields. We can set fire to the chamber of a tyrant when he turns to bed at night, and put an end to a long wicked reign. Why don't we do all that instead of just sitting to watch over this silly little box?"

"As I have said before, we cannot meddle with the humans." The other angel replied, getting agitated. "And really, you should not mock the important task that our father has given us. Now hold your tongue and keep good watch my brother!"

The dark winged angel did not speak for a very long time, but in silence, his mind kept turning. When he opened his mouth again a thousand year later, he was determined that he had found the right answer to all of his questions.

"You do believe that we are guarding something important, don't you?" He asked the other angel.

His heavenly brother let out a deep sigh of exasperation. For him, this most awkward conversation had already dragged on for far too long. He was more the type that preferred professional silence. "Yes, yes I do believe it is of significance." He admitted grudgingly, thinking that perhaps if he kept his answers short, the other angel would soon shut up about it.

"Why else ask the two of us to guard it." The dark winged angel grinned.

"That is correct." The other admitted.

The dark winged angel paused for a moment, then continued. "Do you think the answer is inside that box?"

"Answer to what?"

"The answer to all of these problems." The angel made a grand gesture to the blue globe below. "To all that misery and suffering caused by humankind."

"It's not our duty to question what is inside. We have not been told what it is, and we should not want to know." The other angel replied, going through his usual mantra of unquestionable doctrines again. "My dear, merciful brother." He tried with a lighter, more friendly tone. "This incessant pondering about this subject really does not do you any good. I beg you, let it finally rest."

"No, no, no listen." The dark winged angel argued. "I have been thinking it through for a very long time now. So please humor me and listen. I have a theory."

"You…have a theory?" The white winged angel arched one of his perfectly formed eyebrows. It was most uncommon for any of the heavenly hosts to have an idea of their own. The last time that anyone came up with something original…well…let's just say that it had not exactly worked out well for the entire angelic brigade.

"Yes! Yes!" The dark winged angel continued most enthusiastically. He was completely oblivious that his companion was getting increasingly alarmed by his unconventional behavior. "You see, if our lord is indeed as perfect as we believe he is…"

"He is perfect in every way. I would never doubt that."

"And thus the plans he makes are equally without flaw..."

"They are. That is most certain."

"Then the two of us, must also be part of some sort of plan." The dark winged angel held in his breath, waiting for his white winged counterpart to catch up with his thoughts.

"Yes…I guess we do all serve a purpose and play a dutiful part in our lord's designs." The other admitted most warily.

"Exactly." The dark winged angel said. He was almost biting his tongue to force himself to restrain his excitement. "Now what if my purpose is to make an end to all of this human misery. What if our father has placed this relic in our care, because he knew that I would see what was going on down there on earth, and also knew that I wouldn't be able to endure it?"

Before he could be stopped, the black winged angel had already picked up the golden box.

"What if God wants me to open this? What if this box keeps the solution to of all the woes of humankind?" He paused, and holding the relic in his hands, he gazed with great anticipation at his white winged brother.

"You want to open it, don't you?" The other angel finally said.

"And you will not let me?" The dark winged angel asked, realizing far too late, that he had not been able to persuade him.

The other angel sternly shook his head.

It was said that on the day that the two angels fought over the box's possession, the midday sun was hidden behind a black shield, and that the darkness became so great that farmers had to work in the fields by torchlight. When night came, a storm settled over the land, and brought out between the rushing rain clouds, a dark and ominous sky, littered with stars. The clock struck 12 when in the west a falling star was seen, burning fiercely, a miniature sun with a flaming tail, cutting through the black canvas like a hot glowing knife. To all who witnessed it, it was considered a very bad omen.

Nine months after these strange events, at exactly the first stroke of midnight, my mother, screaming of pain and exhausted after 5 hours of long labor, finally gave birth to a baby boy. At first, when his tiny legs appeared, kicking in the air as if he was already trying to run, the wet nurses still believed that it was going to be a normal and healthy child. It wasn't till after my mother gave the final push and the child fully entered into this world that the women folk found out that the infant was in fact, not much normal at all.

I was born as a deformed little lump that from the waist up resembled more a twisted sapling than the fruit of a our noble family tree. The most superstitious of my father's servants would later blame the falling star for my parents' ill fortune. My mother, they said, had been given such a fright by the very sight of these evil omens on the day that I was conceived, that her womb must had contracted, misshaping my father's seed, which resulted in my most imperfect state.

Preposterous as these old fishwives tales may be, they were right about one thing. My birth did have something to do with what had occurred that day in heaven. Only, it wasn't till much later that I found out how that exactly was.

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1**

 **I**

It was the mad witch who woke me.

Mad she had been for a good number of years. Ever since she lost her precious son, her husband king and the English crown to my family, and was made prisoner by my late brother Edward, Margaret of Anjou had been raving mad. A lunatic in a faded red queen's dress, dirty and torn, who wandered aimlessly through the castle corridors like some forlorn silver haired ghost.

My kingly brother Edward pitied her deeply when he was still alive. God knows why, but his soft buttered heart had a vulnerable emotional spot for damaged women, and he had allowed her to live outside a prison cell and walk around the royal palace unchained and unchecked. For what, Edward argued to me, could this poor defeated wreck still do to the glorious sons of York? She was obviously driven insane by her grief, and no longer a danger to anyone.

But I was far less charmed by her presence. Nor was I so easily deceived. Mad or not, Margaret still believed she was rightful queen of England. She acted not much like a defeated prisoner, but more like an eccentric houseguest really. The kind that hid a dagger up their sleeve, and waited for the right night to come to slit your naked throat. Whenever I was so unlucky to bump into her during my daily routines, the hag would curse me in such a terrible fashion that even my brother's lowest servants would cover their ears to block out the horrible profanity. No doubt, of the three York brothers she must despise me the most. For Margaret may be as crazy as a sack of March hares tossed together with a feisty cat, she still remembered. She knew who put the many holes in the heart of her husband, the truly pitiful but feeble king Henry, who was fitter to be a dead saint than a living ruler.

She remembered who slit the throat of her beloved son, and sniggered at the sight of her wretched tears while the last of her hope bled to death right in front of her upturned arrogant nose.

To be frank, not one night did I sleep with my bedchamber door unlocked and unguarded when Margaret of Anjou was allowed to roam free in the king's palace.

And now, as I opened my eyes, not to the grey and cold sky hanging low above Bosworth, but to a dark vaulted ceiling, it was Margaret who greeted me. Her face hovered only inches away from mine in the weak flickering light of a single candle.

I knew then immediately that I was to pay dearly for these past moments of small pleasures.

"Devil! Are you awake?" Her breath stank of cesspits. Her wild strands of hair swept like a dirty mop over my cheeks, itching like spider-legs.

"Devil! Do you hear me?"

Courtesy to Richmond's butcher work, my vocal cords were slashed. All I could utter were the weakest, most pitiful of sounds, like the mewling of a sick newborn kitten.

"Oh you can! You _can_ hear me!" Margaret's eyes widened, and her dry, chapped lips pulled into a wide ecstatic grin.

"It worked! The spell worked! I brought you back from the doors of hell."

Her joy abruptly ended. "Not that you deserve to be spared. Oh no, not vile Richard, the uprooting hog of Gloucester." She raised her chin and twirled a silver lock between her filthy fingers, exuberating pure contempt when she looked down at me from hooded eyelids.

"I should have left you there to rot." She stabbed an accusing finger into the still raw open wound in my throat, causing me to almost pass out in pure agony. "Why did he make me bring you back?! Why!" She wailed, poking repeatedly into the torn tissue. I whimpered like a beaten dog. Fresh blood welled up in my mouth, damaged nerves firing multiple alarm salvos of pain.

So much for my brother's belief that the ruined she-wolf of France was now a benevolent silver haired angel.

"Instead of closing this hole I should make it larger! Widen it from ear to ear till I can see the white of your neck bones, just like you have done to my poor boy." Her voice shivered, was raw with grief, and bitter from the bile of her rage. She took out a dagger and showed me a signet ring marked with the red Lancastrian rose.

"I should avenge my sweet son today. Wash his emblem clean in your luke-warm blood!"

She placed the blade on my throat, and for a heartbeat, I truly believed that she was going to kill me. Such hatred blazed from her eyes, such mindless, mad, almost animalistic hate that it turned my heart cold with fear.

But then, as sudden as the rapid passing of dark clouds blown from the shores by a merciful wind, her malice subsided. Margaret bowed her head and stared down at her son's signet ring. Her rage and bitterness slowly dulled. She held on to the keepsafe for a long time, aimlessly, indecisively, before finally putting it away while uttering a heartbroken sigh.

Instead of cutting my throat, the mad witch pushed a foul smelling concoction of green mush and spit into my wounds, which she prepared by chewing and mixing herbs in her mouth. Then she dressed my injuries with clean linen ribbons and wrapped me up tight, till I was swaddled like a helpless infant.

"Rest." She finally commanded, after she was done.

She did not need to tell me twice. Well before she left my side, I had already sunk into deep dark oblivion.

 **II**

"Are you awake uncle?"

Two boys were standing in front of my cot. Bathing in halos of saintly light, one was 13, the other 10. They were rosy-cheeked and healthy looking, just the way their doting mother Elizabeth would undoubtedly prefer to remember them. Forever would they stay this way, captured in their prime of youth, for prince Edward and his little brother Richard were no longer bothered by the good and evil deeds of mortal men. No, prince Edward and little prince Richard were very much deceased, and I was the man responsible for their deaths.

"He's not responding. Do you think he's still asleep like we once were beneath the staircase?" Asked Richard, always the less sharp minded of the two.

Edward shook his head at his younger sibling. "His eyes are open. He cannot speak because the mad witch has not healed all of his wounds yet."

"But we don't need our wounds to heal. We don't even need our own bodies to be here."

"He is not a ghost like we are, Richard. He is still alive."

"But you said uncle Richard was dead." my poor little nephew sounded really disappointed now. "You said he was cut to pieces by Henry Tudor and the great army he brought with him from France."

"Uncle Richard did die, but now he's alive again. The mad witch brought him back." Edward came closer, and studied the rhythmic rising of my chest. "Come here and I will show you." He beckoned. "Look, he's breathing. Can't you see? And look, he just blinked his eyes."

His little brother cautiously crept closer and examined the delicate signs of life that Edward had so smartly pointed out to him.

"How come he is the one who is brought back?" Richard asked with bitterness in his whiny voice. "This is so unfair! Uncle Richard sent out his men to murder us in the Tower. He is a villain! Why is he allowed to live again while we have to stay dead? Our poor mother doesn't even know where he buried us!"

"We are still ghosts because the witch has no use for us. She undoubtedly has some use for uncle Richard." Edward explained patiently. He studied me closely. I had never liked the brat when he was still alive. Too world wise for his young age, he had often been harder to fool than his kingly buffoon of a father. Indeed, it didn't take him long to see through my façade.

"Are you afraid uncle?" The youngster asked with a sly little smile. The little devil was so very smug that he had spotted a dent in my armor. "You remember how we visited you in your sleep the night before the battle of Bosworth? We cursed you. We bid you despair and defeat and ruin. We wished with so many others who you have wronged that your enemies would strike you down without mercy. How did it feel uncle? How did it feel to die alone?"

I was struggling to breathe. My heart pounded in my chest like a rabbit on the run that was chased by a pack of vicious greyhounds. Certainly, this horrible specter could not be real. I was not awake, but ailing, caught in a web spun by my own coward conscience. It must be.

"Edward, I don't think uncle Richard really believes he has died." Richard remarked. I was shocked that the brat was somehow capable of reading my innermost thoughts. "He thinks Margaret found him in the field after the battle was over and brought him here alive."

"Is that true uncle Richard? Edward sniggered. "Do you really think that mad Margaret saved you on a whim and that you were spared?"

"Oh I know, you should tell him!" Little Richard clapped in his hands in great excitement. "Tell him what they did to him afterwards, that will make him remember!"

Edward, always the good older brother keen to humor his sibling, gave the rascal an affectionate smile. The eagerness that I saw in his eyes seemed too unnaturally cruel for such a tender age, but then, maybe he had always been a vindictive little monster underneath that rosy-cheeked exterior.

"Come on, tell him like you told me. Don't leave out any gory details!" His younger brother urged.

Children, aren't they just lovely. The world's true delight.

"Shall I uncle?" Edward grinned. "Let me see, after Henry Tudor cut your throat and left you to bleed out like a slaughtered pig in the muddy field..."

Edward's words conjured up a most frightening reality. The stone walls in which I was entombed melted away to be replaced by the blood-soaked fields of Bosworth. I was lying once again on the cold muddy ground. My eyes were still open and stared blankly up to the sky. Then I witnessed, from the periphery of my sight, Richmond's hand, reaching out and lifting the golden round from my head. Blood dripped down from the rim into my eyes. It blurred my world crimson as I watched how he raised my crown high for all around him to see, before placing it on his own head.

His companions let out a loud celebratory cheer, crying victory for their new lord and master.

Then Richmond stepped aside.

His men, still charged with the mad rush of battle, and their hearts overflowing with hatred for their enemy, stripped me from my armor, leaving me naked and exposed.

They laughed at my deformity.

They spat at me and dragged me down the hillside.

"See for whom you have fought!" They jeered, while rounding up my defeated troops, forcing them to bear witness to my shame. "Come and see your dethroned tyrant! We have skinned your vicious hog. See what is hidden beneath, a deformed crippled monster! A foul wretched beast whose existence was a great offence to all Godly men of England! Come and see! Come and see!"

The traitor Norfolk bound my hands and feet and hoisted me over the back of a decrepit old mule. As Richmond's army made their way to Leicester, I was paraded through the streets, stripped from cloak, armor and crown, exposed shamefully to the common mob to be jeered and spat at.

The first lance struck me between my ribcage.

The second pierced my side.

Countless more followed. A minor noble who had once sworn me loyalty and whose lovely wife and children I had imprisoned and tortured to ensure that loyalty, stuck his sword in my buttocks. He was rewarded with a roar of laughter from Henry's men. Stones were thrown by rowdy peasants, making black and blue blooms on my dead flesh.

"The injuries that took your life were just two, but the wounds that the angry crowds inflicted on you after your death were numerous." Edward continued. "Despite your own arrogant believes, you were no more fit to be king than old king Henry was. At least king Henry was kind and virtuous and had the heart of the people. You, on the other hand…no one had any pity for you."

The world shifted before my eyes. I was staring at what was left of me, being dragged behind the mule right through the disgusting filth lying out in the gutter. When we finally reached the castle, I was hoisted up by the neck and hanged from the parapets above Traitor's gate.

"And there you were left to hang, to be exposed to the rain and sun for days. Crows plucked at your flesh and flies laid eggs in your rotting flesh, till good Richmond was crowned Henry Tudor king of England. The newly anointed monarch wished to be merciful to the last of the York kings. However, there was of course, no sanctioned burial for a dethroned tyrant."

My body, bloated with maggots and swarming with black flies, was tossed unceremoniously into a shallow grave in the cemetery of the Black-friars monastery, hidden from public eye. No stone was erected to mark the grave. King Henry did not want anyone to find my remains and mourn my passing.

He did not need to worry. I was certain that by now, there was no one left in this kingdom who would.

"So now you see uncle." Edward concluded. "You were dead."

He paused, and coldly observed the tears brimming in my eyes with as little compassion as I once had for him and his sibling.

"I don't think he likes your story very much." Richard said quietly.

Edward shrugged. "Tears of remorse from a villain who had known no pity nor love for anyone in this world but himself. My dear brother, I don't think that my cold dead heart is moved much."

"Neither is mine..." Little Richard paused for a while to think, then asked. "What will become of him now Edward?"

"I don't know. To the rest of the England, he's dead. If there is any justice, his name and his evil work will be erased from history by king Henry and his kin, or it will be kept alive to serve as a warning for future generations."

"What does Margaret want with him?"

Edward shook his head. "What is going on in the mad queen's head, only Margaret knows."

"And us, what shall become of us?"

"My poor little brother." Edward placed his hand on his sibling's shoulder. "We are ghosts now, haunting spirits who are bound to our wretched uncle. As long as he is still alive, I fear we shall find no peace."

"Then we must stay by his side and wait in the shadows. She hates him. She truly does. She remembers what he has done to her and her family. She wouldn't want to keep him alive for very long I think."

"I did wonder if Margaret was not only bringing our uncle back to make him suffer more." Edward taunted, and undoubtedly took pleasure in the raw fear his words had sparked in my heart. "I agree with you brother. We should keep an eye on him. Who knows what Margaret has is store for our traitor uncle."

"Besides, everything is better than to go back beneath the staircase and sleep." Little Richard complained. "Being dead is truly boring. Nothing ever happens to us anymore."

Both of them started to drift away, back into the shadows. Their pale shining frames were fading fast till they were but two tiny specks of light in the darkness.

Oh how I longed for the quiet and boredom of death.

TBC


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

 **I**

 **La Trappe, 1452**

In a monastery of the order of the Cistercian monks, somewhere in north of France, a man who had forgotten all about his past, suddenly found himself having an epiphany.

It came to him during the late mass. It was a time when the brethren came together in the chapel to worship in sacred silence. As he kneeled down on the stone floor of the chapel, the slow trickle of knowledge entered his mind like a wary animal, slowly approaching an oasis. It filled in the wide gaps in his memories, which until now, did not go back any further than 9 months before.

The peasants who worked the lands surrounding the monastery had found him. He was drifting face down in the river on the day of bad omens, when the sun was swallowed up and the falling star had appeared in the night's sky. Realizing that he was not dead, they brought him to the Cistercian monks. There it was quickly established that the stranger could not recall what had happened to him, where he came from, or even who he was. Grateful to the monks nevertheless, and fully convinced that his miraculous rescue was the work of our maker, the man then decided to dedicate the rest of his life in service of the lord. Three weeks after he was first brought to the monastery, he took the sacred vow of silence to become a novice. He was very proud that he had not spoken one single word ever since.

It was only now that he realized that his true self absolutely loathed that he had taken this rash decision, for he was anything but the silent patient type. By the time the extremely dull sermon had passed for more than two third, he was finally fully aware of his true identity, and he wanted to get out of the chapel fast. His knees were cold from kneeling on the damp stones. His neck was stiff of all that senseless worshipping. So he rose up, brushed the dust from his robe, and strolled away most casually. The other brethren, although shocked by this blatant display of insubordinance, could not and - _really_ _could not_ \- say a word about it.

Not that he cared any longer about what the others thought of him. He had served the lord long enough to know that prostrating oneself on the floor, reciting hollow words and holding in your pee for hours without end was not going to bring you any closer to his good grace than say shagging a cartload of pineapples would.

The very thought of fruit made him ravenous, and he went into the kitchen in search for something to eat. The standard meals in the monastery were rather appalling, and he wrinkled his nose at the horrors that today's supper had install, which was basically cabbage stew, reheated for the umptiest time in the bubbling pots till it was like liquid fart with bits in it. The starvation portions that he had endured for so long were also no longer going to satisfy his rediscovered appetite. He rummaged through the larder, and found in the back, stacked high in round wicker baskets, the autumn harvest of apples from the monastery's orchards. They were red and shiny, and looked deliciously seductive. Taking one and wolfing it down eagerly, he mused over his re-established identity, and tried to link what he now could remember to his current state.

"Lucifer." He muttered to himself, stripping the flesh in two mouthfuls so he was almost left with nothing but the core. "You old devil, how did you end up here on earth?"

There was of course the rebellion thing, that one tiny misstep that happened a few eons ago, that he must not forget to incorporate into this cause-and-effect evaluation.

Heaven forbid ( _literally)_ that he would.

His creator had been terribly angry with him for being responsible for the fall of more than half of the angelic brigade, not to mention for almost bringing on the end of all of creation. But…like a painter who detested how some of his work had turned out, but did not have the heart to just chuck it all out on the dung heap, so was God not able to destroy his first, and most beautiful of angels. Instead, he was banished, imprisoned in the chaoplasm, the realm between realities, a shapeless void where there was absolutely nothing. Boredom quickly settled, and proved so upsetting to his otherwise inquisitive and ambitious self that it soon drove him to the lowest point of his existence. He had even seriously contemplated self-destruction. So utter hopeless his condition had appeared. He would have gone through with it, if it wasn't for the flaw he finally discovered in his father's plan. The recollection of the two angels that his father had assigned as guardians to watch over his prison brought a sly smile across his face.

"Brother Clementia." He whispered, recalling the dark winged angel of mercy most vividly. He did wonder what had become of Clemens. "Oh brother, where are you now?" He added, not without scorn.

The smile faded and was replaced by a grimace. He reached for his right shoulder and traced with his nimble fingers the phantom pain that had erupted over the lines of a jagged scar. It ran from his shoulder blade all the way down over the side of his arm to the back of his hand. This strange soreness stirred in Lucifer not so much a memory, but made him cautious and alert. He was suddenly becoming aware of something very important. Something that he needed to take care of immediately, which otherwise would put his existence in great danger. Getting anxious, he tried to dig deeper into his muddled recollections, but much to his frustration, he could not recall why exactly he was getting so concerned. Neither could he remember the origin of the strange scars that now marked his new human form.

The bells in the tower rang loud to announce the end of the mass. The strange disturbance slipped through the sieves of the fallen angel's mind, as easily as water would through fingers. Lucifer closed his eyes and pinched his nose bridge. As he shook his head to clear his thoughts, he opened them again, and stared at the baskets filled with apples. Then the rumbling of his stomach reminded him of how hungry he was. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the apple core away, and picked up a fresh one from the stash.

He took a juicy bite.

Whatever he had forgotten, surely it would come back to him again.

 **II**

Time passed unnoticed in my tiny stone prison that was devoid of any natural light. In the complete darkness that dominated this place, my mood cycled between despair and horror, being at the constant mercy of the old crone, and utterly defenseless against her sudden outbursts of rage.

For whenever Margaret was in one of her many, _many_ , foul moods, she would indulge herself, like any respectful villainess undoubtedly would, in a bit of torture.

She did it in such a peculiar way that it remained a complete mystery to me if these were indeed the conscious acts of a woman thirsting for revenge, or just the random acts of a crazy old loon.

Margaret would playfully pick at my scabs till they were weeping beads of blood, while she hummed a pleasant nursery rhyme to me, as if she was trying to put an infant to sleep.

She would also patiently feed me when I was still too weak to even lift up a spoon, but then neglect me for weeks when I was finally getting better. In the end, I was literally begging her for a drop of water and was trying to lick the damp from the walls to quench my thirst.

Or, she would press a burning candle on my upper thigh and hold it there, completely oblivious to my cries for mercy, till the stench of black-scarred flesh snapped her out of whatever far-away fancy her musing had taken her.

And while Margaret's unpredictability kept me terrified during all of my waking hours, there was also no peace during my hours of slumber, for my dear little princely nephews kept visiting in an endless string of nightmares.

Getting no pity from the dead nor the living, it didn't take long for Margaret's madness to poison my wits.

Often, I started awake, unable to distinguish night from day. In this total darkness, I lay perfectly still, paralyzed with dread as I tried to listen for the footsteps that would bring my tormentor to my side. I waited with my heart pounding in my throat till the light of her candle spread over the floor, all the while expecting to see the shine of a blade, half-hidden behind the back of her liver spotted hand.

Lying down, breathing, dreading, and waiting for that withered old hag to inflict more suffering on me was all I could do. Soon, I started to believe that I was in hell.

"Are you awake dog?" This time she held in her hand not her dagger and favorite torture instrument, but a crusty loaf of bread, which I received most eagerly into my own begging, trembling hands. "I brought you something to eat. So eat!"

I broke off a piece and stuffed it in my mouth, keen to keep her happy and as far away from her sporadic lunacy as possible. My stomach rumbled, complaining about my diet, but mostly the very lack of it. It didn't take long before I was shamelessly wolfing down the entire loaf.

Margaret grabbed my left arm, which had been shaped like a dry and twisted branch from my birth, and started to unwrap the brown crusted cloths. "Your wounds have healed up fast." She muttered as she examined it.

She wasn't lying. Despite her torments, she had also taken care of me. The head wound at the back of my skull had healed into a soft patch of scarred skin and was quickly becoming covered with hair. The large gaping hole in my throat, which she had stitched shut with a bone needle and thread made of deer sinew, had also closed up. All there was left was a long scabrous line.

"Do you wish to speak?" She croaked, when she accidentally caught me looking at her.

I shook my head and quickly turned away. The last thing I wanted was to provoke her, but her grip was already tightening into a fist. She pulled me up and closer.

"You wish to speak dog? Speak then!" She snarled and snapped like a mad hound. "Or have you forgotten how?" She pulled out her dagger, always that blasted dagger, and pressed the tip into a vein in my wrist, drawing a drop of blood.

"No!" I muttered. My own voice sounded strange to my own ears. Very weak and unfamiliar after many months of disuse. "No please!"

Margaret pulled her lips into a wide grin. "Ha! Not mute then, and not entirely witless!"

Dropping the dagger, she climbed on top of my chest with all the disturbing grace of a tender lover, before straddling me like a farmer would a horse. She bent forward and clutched my head between her dirty hands.

"Not too damaged." She mused, staring right into my eyes. No doubt she was imagining that by doing so she could see the inner workings of my mind. Her verdict on my condition was not too disheartening.

"The dog still barks. The wheels still turn, and the serpent still ponders. Makes me wonder what is in the hog's mind?"

Gathering all the courage that I had left to face this wretched woman, I asked: "W-why-" and swallowed hard before I could continue in a steadier voice. The trick was to never let them know that you were weak, or nearly frightened enough to soil yourself. "Why did you bring me back?"

"Never!" She hissed, spittle flying from her lips. "Never was it my intention to watch you breathe air again! If it was up to me you would still be in the dirt, at dinner with the worms, feeding them fat and happy! But I was fooled." She admitted. "I was tricked to make this cursed bargain. You see, when you were still on the throne, when all of my prophecies still seemed like mad far-fetched fancies, I was so very miserable, and I had prayed and begged day and night on my knees to heaven for a solution. It was then that I was promised my revenge on the last tyrant of the house of York, if only I would just do one thing, just one small thing. Little did I know that what was asked of me was the life of the very man I wanted dead!"

"W-with whom did you make this bargain?" I could imagine that Margaret had no shortage in potential benefactors. Half the English nobility wanted me dead.

"Why, with the devil of course." A mad hysterical giggle escaped her throat. "Who else would be interested in such a rotten, evil, and traitorous wretch?" She shut her eyes as if trying hard to bring back the memories from her muddled mind.

"I found him in the woodland, one dark night, a moon or two after your usurper brother Edward died. Oh, the whole kingdom was in such deep mourning." She opened her eyes again and stared down at me. "But you wouldn't have shed a single tear. No, not you, you crook-back spider. You were too busy waiting in the wings, plotting and scheming your way closer to the throne."

"I did not kill my brother Edward." I said, swallowing hard. It was the truth, and it needed to be said.

Margaret threw back her head and laughed like I had just delivered the punch line of a very good joke.

"Oh are your virtues truly so few that you have to desperately count on the evils you have not committed to tip the moral scale in your favor? I did not say you killed Edward, but you wished him dead. Do not deny it!" She said as she pointed an accusing finger at me.

"And yes, I confess, I wanted him dead too, but for reasons far more just than yours! So I should have been joyful when the bells rang to proclaim the demise of a man who had plotted the murder of my poor lord. Instead, I was in grief, utterly heartbroken, because I knew, I had seen, what was to come after. The two York wolves might have been slain, but the most vicious one who had always been at his siblings' throats is still roaming the lands, and will soon bleed England dry."

If I wasn't familiar with the real dangers of Margaret's madness, if I hadn't been tortured so mercilessly, and if my well being was not so utterly dependent on the outcome of her narrative, I would have rather enjoyed listening to this weird little tale of hers. The last time that I was properly entertained, I still had the English crown resting on my brows. To my somewhat muddled memory of that particular evening, the court jester had only really been half as good as she was.

She continued. "I ventured into the woodlands to be alone with my grief. There, I came across a forest stream. When I looked down in the dark water below, I saw war. I saw kinsman murdering kinsman. Children of noble birth smothered in their sleep. I saw the stream turn red with the blood of the innocent, all to feed the rise of ruthless Richard, the false tyrant king!"

She pulled in a long breath, her hands tightening into fists in front of her bosom.

"It was then that he appeared to me, this devil, a great ancient sorcerer, a demon with the power of changing fate itself. He showed me how the future could be. He showed me a vision of peace, our realm spared from the blood-soaked reign of false king Richard! All he asked for in return was that I would yield to him. That I would swear to do the devil's biddings." Her face lit up, the passing of dark clouds for the first rays of sunlight. No doubt, she was relishing in the thought of me dead and Richmond victorious. Oh how I resented this wench for plucking my crown and handing it over to the usurper, even if was only in thought.

"There is no such thing." I stubbornly replied. I could deal with mortals holding a grudge against me. At least that would only be a temporary problem, until I had thought of a way to make good use of their mortality. Even if I failed, death by the hands of my enemies, as I had recently experienced, proved to be rather mercifully quick. But how impossible it seemed to save myself from the eternal damnation by the devil. So utter denial appeared to be the best option for the moment.

"There is no such thing as the devil! You're making this up to torment me."

"Is there not?" Her mood darkened. Her posture stiffened. She brought out a small circular mirror.

"Look!" She ordered. "Look at yourself!"

I certainly did not want to look into her mirror, but my own will seemed to dissolve under her stern gaze till there was no other but hers to follow. Unable to ignore her command, I glanced at my own wretched reflection. As if by witchcraft, the flesh started to peel away from my skull, revealing the white bones and strings of sinews underneath. I let out a startled cry when my eyes, having suddenly turned dead and cold, burst open with wriggling maggots. They spilled down my fleshless cheekbones like fat round drops of tears.

Margaret drank in my fear like it was a fine exquisite wine. "That was how I found you. A decaying wreck. When I dug you up in the cemetery there was barely enough flesh left to keep your bones together. If it wasn't for the devil's spells, you would have turned into a pile of dust by now."

"Please make it stop." I begged, unable to take my eyes from my horrible decaying self. "Make it stop! Please! Please!"

I sucked in a ragged breath when she broke the unnatural hold that she had over me. I shrieked, and shrunk away from the cursed mirror, shivering and rambling like a traumatized little child. _Oh barbed sarcasm, where is your brilliant wit now to protect me from these horrors?_ "No, there is no such thing. There is no such thing as the devil. No such thing. No such thing…"

Margaret gave me a most pitying look. "Oh my poor villain." She croaked, and petted my sweaty strands of hair like a loving mistress would her frightened dog. "You think me mad, but I have spoken the truth. The devil is real, and now that all he has promised has come to pass, he will soon come. He will come for you."

Placing a Judas kiss on my forehead, she gently wiped the tears from my eyes, before granting me a most deranged smile.

"And on the day he claims his price, I, his most loyal servant, shall receive my final reward."

 **III**

No more of this.

This would not do.

This stone tomb in which she had tried to bury me alive. This darkness she had cast me in, these terrors she exposed me to, threatening me with countless tortures of my flesh and mind.

It would not do.

I must teach my legs to be strong again, to carry my shivering frame from my bed and back. Small steps, not to be made in haste but with great patience, until I can walk again all by myself, without any support. I must train my arms and hands to reach out and tighten into fists, to learn once more to hold a weapon, so I can fight my way out of here.

I will not allow Margaret to be my sadistic jailor forever. I will not die by her hands. Despite being a witch, she's still only an old woman, wretched and frail, and more than twice my age, her knees knocking together when she walks in here like an injured crab. As soon as I have regained my strength, I will strike. I will kill her, wrench the life out of the dried up husk of that vicious cow, bloodshot eyes bulging out of the sockets of her skull, and relish in that most pleasurable act, before I escape this cursed prison.

I swear to whoever is willing to listen in heaven above or hell below, even to the devil himself, that I will see Margaret dead, before I ever let her do this to me again.

 **IV**

My hands traced the walls in darkness, and finally found the door that was the entrance to my cell. Sinking through my knees, I crouched down by the side, my grip tightening around a spike that I had fashioned out of a wooden candleholder. I had worked it against the stones till it was as sharp as a knife's end. Shutting my eyes, I imagined what great pleasure it would give to use this to put out Margaret's mad old eyes. The pointy end piercing through the wet membranes, the pink jelly squirting out and running like bloody gelatinous tears down her hollow cheeks, the look of utter horror on her bewildered face. Such fun this grisly thought was that I had to cover my mouth to prevent myself from succumbing to a fit of mad laughter that tickled like a nest of ants in the back of throat.

"What are you doing uncle?"

Letting out a long anxious sigh, I deliberately did not turn around. I could still not figure out why my brother's dead brats had started to appear in my waking hours to taunt me, but for ghosts, they were certainly fast becoming more bothersome than frightening.

"Why are you hiding?" My nephew Richard asked.

"It does not concern you. Leave me in peace!" I barked, and prayed to his dead father in heaven that it was enough to shut him up.

"Are you going to kill Margaret with that?" Curious little Richard peered over my shoulder. "You think that is enough to strike her down?" He was pointing at the spike that I had tried to hide from him.

"Well it certainly should be enough for your scrawny little neck." I muttered under my breath.

"You cannot harm me uncle Richard." The boy replied, not without a hint of smugness. "Edward assured me that you cannot. So there is no use in trying to frighten me. I won't go away."

Much to my dismay, the bold little devil even came over and sat down next to me.

"I don't think you can kill a witch just by using a pointy stick." He pondered. "Are you not afraid of what she might do to you if you fail? She could turn you into a toad, or worse, a hedgehog."

"Why in the name of good reason would a hedgehog be any worse than…look why don't you go seek out your older brother, hmm? Go and discuss with him your seemingly endless moments of pure wonder for a lifetime or two."

"Edward is asleep. He sleeps a lot. You don't sleep. You are always awake. You're far more fun to be with."

"Am I now." I chewed on my lower lip till it of tasted blood. "I did not realize that I was this good with children."

Before my young nephew could bother me again, footsteps were heard outside of my prison cell.

"It's the mad witch!" Richard exclaimed rather excitedly. I bumped my head against the back of the wall in shock as his high-pitched cries completely shattered my nerves. "She's coming! She's coming for you uncle Richard! She is coming!"

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I shouted, pressing my hands flat against my ears. It was only then that I realized that Margaret could only have heard my own mad ramblings, not the cries of my overexcited dead nephew, who was possibly and very probably, only existing in my head. The sound of a key slowly turning in the lock sent me jumping up like a winded coil. The door opened, widened slightly, spilling a narrow band of light over the floor.

It was now or never.

Raising the spike high in my trembling hands, I was prepared to fight or die.

But Margaret did not appear.

I swallowed hard. Still holding my position, still ready to strike, I waited and held in my breath. Seconds crawled by at glacial speed. Then the seconds turned into an eternity of minutes.

Still, Margaret did not appear.

"I don't think she is coming." My nephew whispered.

"No, no, no." I muttered. "It's a trick. She will come. Don't you see? She's just trying to catch me off guard. As soon as I lower my weapon -"

"What, your pointy stick?"

The insolent boy rolled his eyes at me and moved closer to the door. Unrestrained by the paralyzing fear that had left me indecisive, he even ventured out of my stone prison to take a better look outside.

"There is no one there." He informed after he returned.

"That can't be true." I whispered, shaking my head wildly in disbelief.

"I am not lying to you. Go take a look for yourself."

Anxious, I crept closer to the door and peered my head around the corner while making sure that I kept myself shielded for any possible attacks.

My nephew was right. The corridor outside my prison cell was deserted.

"You see, no sign of Margaret." Little Richard said. "But you better make haste if you still want to escape."

Of course I wanted to escape.

So I ran.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, down the long bleak corridor lit by torches till I reached a flight of stairs. I struggled up the winding steps, opened a heavy door, and stepped into another corridor. It had a row of glass-paned windows on one side that flooded the place with natural light. So I was above ground. The corridor itself was richly decorated with various artworks, carved out in the wooden panels, and was adorned with paintings and tapestries depicting landscapes and victorious battles. The walls were filled with portraits of men and women of noble and royal birth. The whole luxurious arrogance of it all struck me as very familiar.

It was hard to believe, but I had to conclude that I was in Westminster. The witch had kept me in the dungeons of the royal palace. If Henry Tudor's men found me here, I should not expect to live.

On the other hand…I had lived here for over a decade. First in servitude of my king brother, later as the monarch of the realm. I knew the building's ancient plan by heart. If I could reach the small antechamber of the lord chamberlain's court and enter a hidden passageway that led to the sewer exits, I could put myself out of harm's way.

Quickly, I composed the shortest possible escape route from my memories. My mind became so occupied, that I did not notice that I had accidentally ventured into another chamber.

A young boy stood in front of the fireplace and was staring at this ragged looking stranger in silent awe. The boy himself was dressed in the finest red velvet, and in his hand held a short practice sword made of wood. His elderly servant, who was carrying the child on his back the moment I entered, raised himself up from all fours immediately. "How dare you to come into the prince's privy chambers!" He placed himself between me and the child. Such loyalty and selfless dedication from a feeble old man must have been paid for with a lot of coin and personal favors. I briefly contemplated to kill the old man and grab the little princeling as a valuable hostage, but his riding horse slash nanny already was opening his mouth and yelling his lungs out.

"Guards! Come quickly! There is someone in here! Protect his royal highness!"

I did not wait for the guards to come but spurred my legs to run. Out I went of the vestibule and into the courtyard. To my desperation, I found it crowded with the king's entourage. The whole parasitic flock of noble free loaders, lured out into the open by the gentle spring sun for a breath of fresh air after months of stale sweat and bad breath caused by palatial over-occupancy. I hurtled through a procession of leisurely strolling court ladies, who shrieked and recoiled like an alarmed clique of hens when I rushed by. Meanwhile, a group of armed guards had assembled in response to the alarm and were coming right after me. When I reached the entrance to the smaller inner courts, I pulled down a heavy rack of lances from the wall in an attempt to slow them down. I also managed to swap my pointy stick for a long sword on the way. It boosted my confidence just little that I would somehow, in some miraculous way, get out of this mess alive.

Stumbling into the antechamber, I ran straight for the wall in the east that faced the courtyard, and cut down a heavy tapestry depicting my brother Edward's favorite hunting-scene to reveal the entrance behind. I had not used this doorway for a very long time, and had to search in blind panic for the right stone to push to unlock the hidden door. Meanwhile, the clattering of armored boots and metal tassets had already reached the inner court.

"It's this one uncle Richard!" My nephew pointed out a red brick that unlike the others was not covered in black sooth. I pushed it down and to my great relief, it gave way, triggering a mechanism that opened up a whole section of the wall. I slipped inside, just in time for the armed guards to see me disappear behind the closing structure.

Leaning back against the damp tunnel wall, I tried to catch my breath for a moment. When I turned to scuffle down into the pitch-black tunnel, I overheard the men on the other side, loudly arguing among themselves. They had seen me fumbling with the stones. It would not take long for them to figure out how to unlock it.

"We must make haste." My nephew transformed into a speck of light and boldly drifted forward, telling me to follow. Guided by my memory and having the advantage of my nephew's ghost lighting my way, I quickly found the correct route through this hidden maze. One more turn and the entrance would reveal itself, but when we passed the corner, a blind wall appeared in front of us.

"No, no, no! This cannot be!" I slammed my fists on the wet stones and prayed to god that the opening would somehow magically reappear, but the cursed thing remained forbiddingly solid.

"Maybe you took a wrong turn. Or you remembered it wrong." My little nephew tried.

"No I didn't!" I sneered back at him "I used to sneak in and out of the palace through this passageway almost every single day. I am most certain it was here. Right here!" I ran my fingers through my mad tangle of hair while backing away from the unyielding structure. "They've must have changed it." I concluded. "Margaret, she must have done this! Moved the walls around with her devil's witchcraft."

"Uncle, this sounds completely mad." My nephew remarked in a frightened little voice.

"Margaret, do you hear me?" I yelled, ignoring him. I threw my head back and looked up at the dark vaulted ceiling, spinning around in search of her shadow. "Are you here? Come out you wicked old hag! Stop tormenting me!"

"Margaret is not here uncle. Get your wits together. We need to leave. Go back the way we came from and find another passageway."

Letting out a cry of pure frustration and cursing Margaret for everything foul under the sun, I turned around, just when voices came from the other end of the tunnel.

A flickering of torchlight became visible, fast approaching. Finding myself cornered in a dead end like a rat in a blocked sewer pipe, I dropped down on my knees, utterly defeated. As the armed men came closer, I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip around the handle of my sword.

Henry's men shall not take me alive.

TBC


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3**

 **I**

 **La Trappe, 1460**

Considering what was to come afterwards, the first period directly after Lucifer's revelation could be considered to be quite tame. Of course, his Cistercian brothers were not particularly charmed by his new ways. The novice had started to steal food from the kitchen, did not share or participate in any of the communal activities, skipped every mass, and neglected his chores, in that he really did not bother doing any of them at all. Although his behavior sparked outrage and calls for punishment, it remained difficult for the monks to correct their youngest recruit, particularly since scolding in silence was never going to be very effective for someone like Lucifer, who simply ignored them and looked the other way. Physical punishment was also out of the question. If one of the brethren so much as waved a cane at him, he snatched it away from his attacker and used it to give the other a good thrashing on the backside before sending him out with his buttocks inflamed. These actions soon ensured that nobody in the monastery dared to even wag a finger in his direction. The fallen angel could just continue to go wherever and do whatever he pleased.

For the first couple of years, this sort of life suited Lucifer rather well. He busied himself with seducing the finer specimen of the religious clique, taking a string of lovers for his pleasure. His current incarnation was not particularly handsome, at least not in the traditional angelic sort of way, but he had a manner of composing himself, a way of movement, that the mortals found irresistible. A flutter of his hooded eyelids, a lingering stare, or the shadow of a smile that played in the corners of his lips could seduce and lure even the most god-fearing man into his bedchamber. He particular enjoyed the smoothness of the virginal bodies of the younger men, who stiffened under his first touch, but melted like butter when he entered them, a beautiful softening of limbs and flesh, while his hands burnt hot on their clenching buttocks.

He also loved the way they repented afterward. All lamenting tears for their forbidden transgressions. Too ashamed to even pray to his father for forgiveness. Often, the psychological torment became so great that they began to harm themselves. They transformed into a scarred mess, the products of self-flagellation, exhibiting such exquisite fragility that it made Lucifer desire them even more, and what he wants, he always gets. This destructive cycle continued until his victims became so mad with repentance that they actively started to seek self-destruction, at which point Lucifer would simply move on to his next target, finding this particular phase in the relationship more bothersome than enjoyable and rather dull.

The cemetery outside the monastery (suicides were not allowed to be buried in holy ground) was almost bursting with the many corpses of these failed monks, when Lucifer finally decided that he had enough.

Oh it wasn't so much that he had gotten tired of shagging naive religious souls, but surely his newly acquired freedom had to be more meaningful than just these daily tumbles between the bed sheets. The real problem with being free, he mused, was that there were so many different possibilities, so many options available to him now, but no one reliable to tell him which goal was best and most meaningful to pursuit. Once, all he had to do was to follow the orders of his father, and later during the rebellion, it was his own boundless ambitions that guided his actions. Once incarcerated, the task at hand was plainly to not go mad and figure out a way to escape his horrible prison. But now…what should he aim for now?

What else was there to do except for pestering these beautiful misguided idiots?

The thought that he should venture out and go look for Clemens came up in his mind. Only, to what purpose? True, his dark winged brother had been responsible for his accidental release, but if Clemens was still alive, no doubt the other hosts would have talked him into doing the noble thing by now, which was to come to earth and find Lucifer to atone for his sins. Seeking out "the caring one" was basically an invitation to get himself locked up again inside that cursed box. Not much of a fun prospect, considering that eternity was a frightening long time to spend in solitary confinement.

No…there must be more purpose to his current existence than playing the prey to be hunted down by his heavenly brothers.

The answer to his existential crisis came to him one day when he was going through the many books that were at his disposal in the monastery's library.

Lucifer loved to read. The thick mildewed volumes he found on the shelves of the ancient vaulted chambers were an excellent source, providing him insight into the collective mind of mankind. Before he came to earth, he had little interest in the lives of these mortals. Now that he was forced to live among them, and experienced their messy whirlwind of emotions at first hand, he could not help himself from being strangely captivated by it.

He wanted to understand them. He wanted to know what made them do the things they did.

Unsurprisingly, works of history were his favorite, but he also read many religious texts, except for the bible. He deliberately did not read the bible, for he remembered having read the whole thing from cover to cover multiple times when he was still the enthusiastic novice from before his revelation. He had more than enough of it.

The other writings mainly provided him with a form of light entertainment, for he could not believe how much nonsense had been written on the subjects of god, angels and heaven alone. Most of these accounts appeared so comical, and were frequently so outright wrong in interpretation that he often found himself laughing out loud with tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks while the other monks gave him the most disapproving looks.

It was however, in these same religious books that he finally found his calling.

When at first, Lucifer came across an extensive description of hell in a 11th century text from a long dead author, the text had amused and stupefied him as much as a donkey's ass that shot out golden coins would a crowd of beggars.

The fact was, the humans absolutely did not understand their god. His father had too much love for his creations, and his mercy was too boundless to ever be capable to create such a horrible place to punish them. It was men alone who had dreamed up this nightmare realm of eternal torment, possibly only with the intention to scare his fellow humans into religious submission.

In truth, when mortals died, they went to rest in a dreamless sleep. All right, some who were particularly restless or vengeful might remain on earth as ghosts, but there was no judgment on their lives in the spirit world that would determine the final destination.

Or more simply put, there was no hell. It didn't exist.

But, as the days progressed and he learned more about this subject in other texts, Lucifer started to wonder, _why shouldn't it exist?_

He started to play with the idea of such a place. Following the popular narrative, he was the ruler of hell, its true lord and master. The notion of gathering souls into a realm between realities and occupying it with fallen angels, which the mortals called demons, to act out punishments on these deceased sinners, slowly grew on him.

The way he saw it, the devil had a true purpose in hell. He was there to facilitate the deceased in their afterlives, to give these poor lost things a chance to torture, maim and starve themselves towards salvation. To burn and purge their sins away so that they would learn to forgive themselves, and finally find inner peace.

If anything his prolonged imprisonment had taught him, it was that without darkness, there was no true appreciation for the splendor of light.

So could there be a more divine and honorable purpose for him than to become the creator and ruler of hell?

It took a few months for this provocative idea to seed, ripen and to bear fruit. When he finally decided to go through with it and to leave the monastery in pursuit of his ambition, he had his entire plan in place.

He was exceptionally cheerful and felt very excited the day he packed his bags and stepped through the monastery's gates, never to return. A grand vision had unfolded in front of Lucifer's eyes. One in which he had finally found a reason for his existence.

He finally understood that his destiny was not to be under the rule of god, but to be the master of a domain that was parallel to his father's creation.

As the church bells of the monastery rang again to summon the others to mass, Lucifer hastened his pace and took to the winding road that led to the French coast.

 **II**

I was cornered in a dead end of the hidden palace tunnels with the king's guard fast approaching when I picked up the soft murmur of streaming water, coming from below my feet. Hope rekindled, I lowered myself and pressed my ear against the ground. For a moment, the only sound I heard was my own mad thumping heart, but then, it returned, the sound of splashing water rushing over wet stones.

They didn't block the sewer exit. They had moved it underground.

I beckoned my nephew to come closer so he could shine his light over the damp floor. While the heavy footsteps of the armed guards echoed down the tunnel towards us, I rushed to swipe clean the muddy surface, and soon revealed a wooden lid that closed off the entrance to the sewers below. There was no handle for lifting, and the gap between the lid and the stone border was too narrow for my fingers to get a good grip. Then I remembered my sword. I stuck it in the narrow gap and used it as a leverage to lift up the heavy structure. It worked, and a deep dark opening was revealed. It seemed to be absolutely bottomless. Holding in my breath, I jumped into the pit, just when the first men came close and struck out with their lances.

Many feet below, I dropped into a stream of stinking sludge and was immediately swept away by a fast current. It carried me, half drowning and struggling to stay afloat, out of the dark tunnels and into the wide waters of the river Thames.

 **III**

A hesitant whisper. "Is he dead?"

"How should I know? He certainly looks dead." A kick in the side followed, stirring me awake. I coughed and retched up the dirty water that was locked in my lungs. Gasping for air, my eyes opened and blinked at the harsh light that seemed to engulf the entire world. I was half expecting that my two dead nephews were meddling with my mind again. Instead, the pockmarked face of a middle-aged greybeard was staring down at me. I found myself washed up at the muddy banks of the Thames, seagulls and crows circling high above my head.

"Oy, not dead then."

Alarmed, I reached for my sword, but before I could take it, the pockmarked man stepped on my hand. "Feisty one, considering he must have swallowed up half of the Thames." He remarked, and grinning, he leaned forward, steadily putting on more pressure till my fingerbones cracked like dry twigs under his boot. I let out an anguished cry.

"God, look at him!" His companion was gaping at my withered limb. "It's like his arm has been gnawed at by rats." Broader than he was tall, with a dull look in his eyes, thick meaty lips, and a neck the size of that of an ox, the man was an walking example of what the human species could be like if we would all marry our cousins for generations without end. Why he fretted so much about this poor washed up freak of nature who would probably never produce a living descendant, was beyond my comprehension. The fault of our inevitable decline was obviously not mine.

The brute stole my sword and handed it over to the greybeard.

"Diseased little bugger." Greybeard muttered, and kicked me again in the stomach. As I retched up more water and struggled to turn on my belly in anticipation of another painful blow, he used my sword to cut open my tattered shirt, revealing my deformities.

"You're a real monster, aren't you?" The greybeard gasped, taking in the lump on my back with more amazement than actual shock. "And I thought we were lucky today to stumble upon a rich corpse."

Meanwhile, his companion was visibly more repulsed by the sight. He spat on the muddy ground while he hurriedly made a cross sign to ward off whatever evil he thought he must fend off.

Greybeard knelt down to take a better look at my deformed back, strangely fascinated by this cruel joke of nature that had marked me my entire life.

"Unfortunately, all you have with you that is of any value is this rusty old sword. Also, you have proven to be not much of a corpse." He said. The way he scrutinized me as if I was a rare specimen to an eager collector of dead things was frightening. I could see by the deep wrinkles on his forehead that the wheels inside were spinning.

"Now normally," He continued in the most casual of tones. "under these circumstances, my companion and I just act like good Christians. We dispatch the poor buggers before they can run off to the city guards and get us into all sorts of trouble."

He pointed the blade at the ugly protrusions at the side of my ribcage, and trailed it down over the whole length of my wretched arm. "This time however, I think we should rather keep you alive." It was obvious that Greybeard was the brains of this illustrious pair, and he certainly had something sinister for me in mind. He flashed me a grin that made my blood run cold before he turned to his companion.

"Audemar, could you lend me a hand?"

The other man quickly approached with a set of rusty chains and cuffs that jangled in his shovel-like hands. Realizing what they were about to do, I fought to get free, only to receive several blows on my head that painfully splintered the cartilage in my nose and sent my vision into a violent spin. Too dazed to fight back any longer, I let them put the cuffs around my wrists and drag me to the back of their cart.

"Are you sure about this?" Audemar inquired. "One look at him and the little ones are going to wet themselves. Their mothers are going to complain."

"Look, if he doesn't make us any coins, we slit his throat and dump him back in the river." Greybeard replied while he helped hoisting me up the vehicle. It wasn't easy, with me being reduced by their violence to a strengthless tangle of heavy limbs. He secured my chains to a bolt lodged in the side of the wagon, and from that miserable moment onwards, I was their prisoner.

"Don't worry, we are not going to waste good bread on him if he doesn't earn his keep." Greybeard added, before he climbed onto the front seat of the double horse span.

"Ha! That's what you said last time we had that stupid dwarf." Audemar commented as he sat himself next to Greybeard.

"Dwarfs are common." Greybeard scoffed. "You can find them in any brothel and alehouse. Cheap thrills for a bit of loose change, that is all what you get for them nowadays. No, this one is different." Greybeard looked at me, cowering in the corner in the back of his wagon. He flashed me a toothy grin.

"Besides, entertaining peasants was not exactly what I had in mind for him."

Taking hold of the reigns, Audemar struck the horses, and the whole dammed vehicle started to move.

 **IV**

The stagnant air in the fighting pit was thick with the stench of piss and sweat.

I was dragged out into the open circular area by the chains fastened onto the iron dog collar around my neck. The straw on the floor was so wet with blood, vomit and whatever a living creature could possibly excrete in times of severe stress that I almost lost my footing. Above me came the loud jeers of a drunken, blood thirsty crowd. Lord Northumberland's men were merrily wasting away their pay on ale and whores, and were in much need of good entertainment. Stark against the grey northern sky, the proud banners of Bamburgh castle fluttered against the chilly wind.

"Look at that ugly bastard!" One of the men yelled, pointing at me and looking up at Greybeard and Audemar, who I found standing amidst the packed group of spectators. "Where did you get that monster from? Did you cut it out of the womb of a whore who had been ravaged by a deformed hog?" The crowd burst into boisterous laughter. To rejoice the punch line, some of them flung their empty goblets down into the pit, aiming straight for my head.

"Watch out hog breed!" They were so kind to inform me. "The kennel master's dogs are starving! They are going to rip you apart! They are going to enjoy hunting you down!"

Pressing my back against the wall, I watched with dread how two hounds, both the size of grown wolfs, threw themselves on a dying dog. The largest bit down hard on the dog's belly, spilling out the pink curly guts. Drops of blood were flung in the air as the attacker shook its victim violently. The other monstrous canine, taking hold of the jaw, attacked with such rage that he ripped it clean from the other dog's skull. The crunch of canine bones between the sharp teeth turned up bile from my stomach. I bend over and heaved dryly while the circle of drunkards above cheered at the sight of this bloody spectacle.

Winners were proclaimed and coins were exchanged. Most of it ended up in the kennel master's greedy hand.

"Come on!" The excited crowd yelled. "Get rid of it! Get on with the next fight!"

Four men were needed to pull back the two murderous hounds and drag them off stage by their chains. Whatever remained of the dead dog was taken away from the pit as well, leaving the starving beasts hungry for their next meal.

"Get him closer! Bring him to the center of the pit. The men on this side can't see a thing!" The kennel master shouted, keen to make a good show out of it.

Greybeard, who was standing on one side of the circular pit, jerked hard on the end my chains. I clumsily stumbled forward like a newborn fawn, falling over myself and landing hard on my hands and knees. With long strands of lice infested hair dangling in front of my eyes, I did not see that one of the beasts had already launched itself at me. It grabbed my leg and pulled me away over the wet straw, his teeth sinking all the way down into bone. Crying out in agony, and acting on mindless instincts, I kicked the beast in its belly, sending it flying backwards. As I trashed away from the snapping teeth of the other hound, Audemar pulled on the other end of my chains till the strain allowed me no more movement in any direction.

No more hiding and cowering. This was the end. These beasts were going to eat me alive. They were going to tear me apart, just like they did with the other dog. After all this was over, there would only be bits and pieces of me left, stuck between these rows of triangular teeth, rotting away inside their stinking mauls.

When both hounds we set lose from their chains, I hunched down, terrified.

What if they bit me in the face? Crushed my jaw and tore it from my skull, could I still scream? Could you even make a sound without a lower jaw? Wasn't the tongue attached to it? I tried to hold up my good arm to shield off my face, and turned my stomach away from their ferocious attacks. The larger hound grabbed my arm and cut it open with its razor teeth.

The second went for the deformed lump on my back, and I could just imagine, seeing it so vividly in my mind's eye, the animal tearing at it with its claws and teeth, stripping away the flesh till the white of my rib bones shone through.

"Come on then you coward, get up! Get up, and fight you deformed hog! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

During that cheery chanting, another goblet was flung at me and landed within my reach. I grabbed it with my shriveled hand and smashed it into pieces on the skull of the hound that clung onto my other arm. Surprised by the suddenness of the attack, it let go with an angry howl. With both my hands now free, I grabbed the chains of the smaller hound that had dug its claws into my back. I wrapped it around its short sinewy neck and tightened it, praying to all the angels and saints and God above, that it would soon choke to death.

Meanwhile, the first dog was coming back. Its white-rimmed eyes were glazed over with a mad ferocity. Just when it launched itself, I managed to get the smaller one off my back and swung it by the chains at the other canine. The two beasts crashed into each other and landed on their backs with their paws in the air.

The crowd went wild. From their view, it was pure comedy.

The larger dog was about to roll back up, but I was faster on my feet. I picked up a piece of broken shard and stabbed it into the beast's maul. It punctured the roof of its mouth, and sent the dog howling as it crawled away in agony.

The other one was still lying on the ground. Maddened, pained, deranged with fear, I sank my teeth into its throat and ripped through its jugular before it could rip through mine. As I tore away strips of flesh, blood pumped out like a fountain. It painted a crimson mask on face, and turned me into a savage beast while I continued to tear the animal apart, filling myself with soft mouthfuls of chewiness while I savored the warm metallic tang on my tongue.

It wasn't till the dog master's men started to beat me down with canes that I crawled back into a corner to allow them to get to the dying animal.

"What did I tell you?" Greybeard exclaimed after the fight was over. He slapped Audemar triumphantly on his shoulder. "Our monster is a champion!"

"That monster of yours is the devil himself!" The kennel master spat as he reluctantly handed over a fat purse of coins to Greybeard. "He ruined two of my best fighting dogs!"

"Oh come on dog master. It's not like we didn't make it easier for your precious pups. We held him down long enough for them to even go take a long hot piss at him." Greybeard mocked. "We cannot help that your dogs are not up to the task."

"We do thank you for feeding him for us though." Audemar taunted. "If you have more of your dead animals at your disposal, we are more than happy to take it from your hands."

"Curse you both for bringing him here." The kennel master hissed, boiling over with anger and indignation. "I bid you, leave by the first rays of the morning and never come back!"

It was a request that we had heard many times before. Against all odds, I had fought and survived many dogfights had been held in numerous towns and garrisons, only to be told that we had outstayed our welcome after the whole bloody affair was over. This traveling act was quickly running out of places to visit.

"Take that vile creature with you!" The kennel master said. When he turned to leave, he added. "You should dispatch it. That deformed demon is an abomination. To allow it to exist is an offence to God!"

"You hear that." Audemar told me after the dog master had left our camp. He kicked the bars of the cage with tip of his boot to get my attention. "The old dog breeder commands us to be rid of you."

"Nah! The old man is a sore loser. I am not going to dispatch the hog who finds me these fine bags of golden coins. No matter how hideous he is." Greybeard told him, and stooped down to peer through the bars at me.

I was cowering inside my tiny cage with my knees drawn up against my chest. Naked, filthy, and crawling with lice, and I was shivering of pain and exhaustion. Crusted blood covered the countless slashes and bite marks that were all over my body. The fresh wounds on my hump and limbs were still open and gushed out slow trickles of blood.

"You think we should do so something about those nasty cuts?" Audemar asked.

Greybeard shook his shoulders. "It will heal, just like the last time. Just don't forget to give him something decent for supper tonight. It seems wrong to starve him now that he had made us such a pleasant windfall."

 **V**

That night, Audemar left me a bowl of water and some scraps from their supper. Although I was starved and dying of thirst, I did not take it. My spirit, crushed and broken, seemed to have fled, leaving behind only my body to suffer its cursed fate. I could not be motivated to perform any action. Not even one that would fulfill even my most dire of needs.

For what was the whole damned wretched point of it all?

Why quench the thirst in my parched throat or fill my empty stomach, just to keep myself alive to experience yet another day of this horror and shame?

Most of those who once loved me, were dead, and buried deep underground for their mistake.

Those who knew me and had survived would refuse to even speak my name, or it would only be with hateful scorn and in the same breath to seal a curse.

Margaret had not resurrected a dead king. She had brought back a useless hollow shell. I had become a helpless victim trapped in a horrible series of cruel misadventures. The men at the fighting pits, who jeered and spat at me, and wished to see me slaughtered, they thought of me a savage animal. My captors, who had taught me, like strict masters a feral dog with sticks and endless whipping, to fight on their command, and to beg for the scraps from their tables, they looked at me and saw a fun fair monster that they had caged for their abuse and exploitation.

I was seen as no more but a beast and was dealt with like a beast.

The more the world treated me in these ways, the more I forgot that I was human, and the more my burdened conscience told me that it was fair.

It was no use to keep denying the truth.

Richard Plantagenet's life was over, and all that was for me left was this horrible wretched existence.

And I, who was seen by the whole world as a mindless vicious animal, should start to act like one.

Finally giving in to the thirst, this worthless and base animal crawled to the bowl, bowed its head and lapped up the liquid with its tongue. Dried blood dissolved in my mouth. Salted tears streaked down my filthy cheeks and dripped into the water below.

A speckle of light appeared, drifting in the dark on the other side of the bars.

"Uncle."

Realizing who had come to visit me, I quickly turned away, hiding myself in shame.

"Uncle." My little nephew Richard spoke again.

I crawled further back into the shadows, away from the light. "Leave me alone." I said in a shivering voice. "Have I not endured enough?"

"I am not here to harm you." The bright little light changed and took human form when it passed through the bars. "I saw what those men did to you. I am truly sorry."

"I don't deserve your pity." I spat out bitterly.

"Mother once told me that every men on this earth deserves mercy." There was such kindness in his voice that it shamed me even more. "We're all God's creatures."

"Not me." I shook my head, and hid my gaze behind my dirty strands of hair. "I am a Godless creature."

And in my mind, I saw the men who I had sent out to the Tower. They were creeping up the winding staircase towards the two princes. My brother Edward's children, who I had once sworn, with my good hand on the holy scripture and the other holding that of my brother's, to love and protect. Instead, I had summoned these two deadly shadows that now edged over their peaceful sleeping faces, and muffled their cries when their rough hands stopped them from breathing.

I had murdered my nephews.

I had broken my vow. I had taken two innocent young lives who had never truly injured me, and who were of my own blood.

I am a monster.

So how could all of this misery I am now in, not be my rightful punishment?

"Why are you pitying me?" I dragged in ragged breaths as my nephew's ghostly presence continued to wreck my heavy conscience.

"Don't you see? These men are entitled to treat me as they do. I deserve all of this. I am unworthy of any kindness." I bowed my shoulder and hung my head low. Lower than a dog, lower than the worms wriggling in dirt. Lower than the dirt on the soles of a beggar who sleeps in his own vomit in the gutter.

"I don't deserve your kindness." I muttered, trying so very hard not to cry, but failing miserably, and finally breaking down in hot remorseful tears. "I beg you. Please, don't be kind to me. Don't be kind to me."

The boy reached out and put his hand on my shivering skeletal frame. "My poor confused uncle." He whispered into my ear. "They have not let you sleep for days now, have they?"

He embraced me and gently cradled my head in his lap. "You're tired. You're hurt. Close your eyes."

"No, oh no, I am afraid I shall never be able to sleep again." I whispered, my eyes wide, staring and seeing nothing but darkness.

"Don't fear my uncle. I shall stay by your side, and no bad dreams will come to you tonight. I assure you. Now rest uncle. Rest."

TBC


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 4**

 **I**

 **Amiens, 1470**

The girl was barely 16, but already her heart was full of a lifetime worth of sorrows. You could easily see it, if you had time or the heart to care, in the way she walked with her back bend and shoulders hunched forward, as if she was carrying the weight of the world all by herself. A black scarf was wrapped around her head and hid the beauty of her youth. She did no longer care for it. The wide black dress she wore could only partly hide her large round belly from the judging eyes of the men and women passing by. As she went through the city gates and quietly made her way to the hidden spot by the river that was just outside of town, she could feel the infant kick inside her, as if it was pleading for his unborn life.

Too occupied by her own miserable thoughts, she hardly noticed that she was being followed. It was only when she crossed the rickety wooden bridge that span across a rushing river, and felt the narrow structure sway as a result of his footsteps, that she glanced over her shoulder and noticed the stranger.

"Oh, I am so sorry that I have startled you." The man apologized with a polite little bow. He was handsome, lean with long black hair that curled behind his ears, with a sharp pale face, and a set of hooded eyes that looked right into her soul.

"I have forgotten that I am no longer as light-footed as I used to be." As he said it, he felt his back muscles strain, his human body mourning the loss of his most precious heavenly assets by attempting to beat with his phantom wings. He shuddered and cursed his father under his breath.

"Monsieur, have you been following me?" The girl asked. Her hands clutched on to the fabric of her scarf so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"I have to regrettably admit that I was." He replied. He had no cause to lie to the girl. It would not make a difference to her anyway.

"Why?"

"Because I know where you are heading."

"Are you trying to stop me?" She said it in a way that it could be interpreted as a question, as well as a cry for help. He knew that in truth, she was longing for kindness, for someone to offer her a hand to lift this heavy bleakness from her shoulders. Fortunately for the poor child, he was the right man to ask.

"Me?" Lucifer grinned his toothy grin. "No absolutely not. Your life is your own. If you've made the decision to commit suicide, it is not my business to criticize or intervene."

"But, if you're not trying to stop me, why are you then following me?"

"I need a guide." He explained, slightly embarrassed.

"A guide?" She repeated, not sure she had heard him right.

"It's complicated." He raised his eyebrows as he sought for the right way to explain his intensions to this simple human female. He chose to go with a short allegory, mostly because he had not much patience. "It is like I am seeking truffles in the wood and I need a good hound with a strong nose to find them." He tapped the side of his own with his finger. "You my child, have a very strong nose for truffles." He paused when he noticed that the girl was slowly backing away from him. It was obvious that she was getting more alarmed by his bizarre ramblings than she was getting enlightened.

"Look, you are desperate, are you not?" He tried again with a tad more patience. "The lover who you thought would be your husband has abandoned you while you are 6 months pregnant with his child. The man you gave your heart to has smashed it into a thousand tiny pieces, and it will never be whole again." He gazed at her, a cruel sadness lingered in his hooded eyes. It cut right into her already wounded heart.

"I know you still hope that your actions will force him to mend his ways, but believe me, he will not. He will not shed a single tear after hearing of your demise. Before daylight breaks and the fishermen drag your lifeless body from the river, he will already have spent the night in bed with another woman, younger and more beautiful than you. By next month, he will even have forgotten your name. Your time together, the many happy smiles, the long blissful nights dozing in each-others arms, the secret pet names that he invented for you and whispered into your ear, it all means nothing. _You_ mean nothing to him."

"Stop it!" The girl cried out with rivers of tears flowing down her face. "Stop it! Why are you so mean to me? I have nobody left. He doesn't want to see me. My father kicked me out of the house. He said I was a disgrace. I have no one in this world. No one!" She wept miserably, clutching on to her belly, while snot dripped down from the tip of her nose.

"Oh yes." Lucifer murmured, taking in her sorrow with much satisfaction. "There it finally is, true, deep felt misery." He leaned towards her and inhaled deeply. "My child, forgive me for enjoying it so much, but your hopelessness has turned your body into one of the finest instruments on earth. Each exquisite note it sends out vibrates in the air, and is vocalizing such _devastating_ sadness." He closed his eyes and gently swayed his head as if entranced by a soundless musical masterpiece. "It's a pity that you cannot hear it, it is absolutely beautiful."

"W-what d-do you w-want from me?" The girl hiccupped, choking on her tears.

Lucifer's eyes snapped wide open. Finally this was getting him somewhere. "It's simple. I want you to follow your heart. I need you to go the place where you want to take your life. Where were you heading before you noticed me?"

"To the riverside." She didn't know why she was telling him this, but it didn't matter. Nothing in the world mattered anymore. She felt completely dead inside. "There is a place I know where an old willow tree grows. A tree with tangled roots and low hanging branches that touch the flowing water below. It's quiet and very peaceful. I want to go there."

"Show me."

She took him there. It was exactly like she had described to him, a calm shoreline just around the river bend, half-hidden behind the swaying fields of reed. It had an ancient willow tree growing from its muddy soil, her long branches gently swaying along with the currents of the stream.

Still weeping, the girl pulled up her frock and stepped over the boulders on the shoreline into the water. Wading in till the icy stream reached up to her waist, she slowly turned around, and looked up at Lucifer with her large brown eyes pleading for sympathy.

"Oh don't mind me." Lucifer replied, turning his attention away from the pitiful creature. "Just do what you came here for." He added, just for encouragement. He no longer needed her. He had found what he was looking for. Placing his hand flat on the trunk of the willow tree, he felt an ancient heart beating leisurely underneath the rough surface of the bark. This tree that looked so ordinary, and grew unnoticed on the muddy banks of this unremarkable river, was humming with despair, exuberating anguish, bleeding pure misery. It was literally oozing with the most depressing human emotions known to mankind. This strange tree was what had attracted the girl and countless of others before her, to come to this specific place to end their lives. It was the call of pure desperation, cast out by the steady drumbeat rhythm that was engrained in its core that had drawn in so many of those without hope and comfort.

The girl lost her footing and splashed into the water. The currents swept her down to a deeper part of the river where she could barely touch the bottom, and was forced to balance on the tip of her toes to allow her nose to break the water surface.

"Are you still with us?" Lucifer shouted again over his shoulder.

Half drowning now and in absolute panic, the girl cried out for help, swallowing mouthfuls of water into her lungs as she tried to hold on to the low hanging branches of the tree. This commotion finally caught Lucifer's attention. Very much annoyed that he was distracted, he went back to the riverside.

The girl cried out once more, her hand stretched out to him, begging to be saved.

"Ah I see that you are struggling to keep your resolve." He observed the situation with a concerned furrow in his brows. "To be fair, drowning is not the easiest way to leave this life." He searched around, picked up a long sturdy branch, and pointed it at her. "Here, let me return your kindness."

At first the girl thought that he was offering her a way to get out of the water, and she let go of the willow branch to reach it. But instead of allowing her to grab on, her would-be savior put the tip of the branch against her chest and used it to violently push her down.

"Easy now." He muttered, while she desperately struggled to come up for air. "Easy. You will thank me when this is over."

She continued for a good two minutes till finally, a string of bubbles rose up from her mouth and nose. Then her body went limp.

Lucifer held her down for another two minutes, just to make sure. It was the least he could do for the poor soul. After being sure that she was dead, he pushed her out to the middle of the river. Soon her lifeless body was washed away down stream. Out of his sight.

He tossed the branch into the water and turned his attention back to the ancient tree.

"My brother, did you sense her?"

Gently, he rested his hand on the surface of the trunk. The fear that had eradiated from the now deceased girl was like a strong aftertaste that clung bitterly onto his tongue. "To be so miserable yet unable to end it all due her natural fear of dying." He shook his head in true disgust. "It is such a sick trick of the human mind. Our father has created a multitude of flaws in these creatures. It was a mistake to abandon them like this. They truly need guidance. Luckily, we are here."

He caressed the bark with his fingers, relishing the last fleeting moments in the existence of this ancient willow tree. He then took in a deep breath and took out an axe from his backpack.

"Now this may sting a little." He warned with a grimace, before he swung the blade hard against the trunk.

Where the tree was cut, it started to weep crimson blood.

He swung the axe again.

The branches of the willow shuddered violently as if it was in great pain, and the many birds nesting in its crown took to the air in fright.

He continued hacking into the trunk till the willow finally fell, uttering a loud miserable moan, while tearing the crimson cut that he had created further open like a wide bleeding mouth. As soon as it hit the ground, the leaves started to fuse into pale spiderleg-like fingers that ended in long green fingernails. A satisfied grin spread over Lucifer's lips, and he buried the axe in the bleeding stump. He then went to sit down in the tall grass to watch the rest of the transformation take place, chomping on a fresh red apple that he had picked from an orchard nearby.

It took some time for the rest branches of the old tree to join and twist together to form a complete human-like shape. Legs and arms were the first to appear, followed by a long torso, a sinewy neck, broad shoulders and a large round head. Finishing the apple in one bite and tossing the core over his shoulder, Lucifer stood up and walked over to the newly formed man to offer him his hand.

"Welcome back Zambriem, my heavenly brother, angel of desperation." He said most affectionately, pulling his brother up from the ground. The man he was talking to stood uneasily, swaying on two stiff legs like someone clumsy balancing on stilts. His skin, although pink and hairless like that of a human being, remained rough to the touch, and was flaky and brittle like tree bark.

"Who freed me? Oh, is that you father?" Zambriem said, he blinked blindly as he tried to look around. He had not used his sense of sight for a very long time.

"No, not our father." Lucifer wiped with his thumb over the corners of his brother's eyes to remove most of the ancient dirt and moss that had collected in there.

"Lucifer?" Zambriem exclaimed after his sight was somewhat more cleared. "Did our father send you? Have I finally atoned for all of my sins?" He asked with great hope shining in his eyes.

"Ah, well I am afraid I have to disappoint you again. The answer is no."

"But then…why am I free?" There was a most pitiful sense of dread in Zambriem's voice that annoyed Lucifer immensely. As if being free was not a cause worth pursuing in itself. Oh no, one had to be absolutely forgiven by their lord and master to feel satisfied… _Now good luck with that…_

"Because I need you." Lucifer replied, trying to remain patient with his brother. He could imagine that to be condemned to live on earth as an immobile plant for over 5000 years was not exactly going to leave one unaffected.

"You need me…for what exactly?" Dry flakes of bark came off his face when Zambriem creased up his forehead. "You're not going to rebel again are you?"

"No of course not."

"Because it didn't end so well the last time you tried. I wouldn't have ended up here on earth if it wasn't for you. You remember? I wouldn't have ended up looking like this." He rubbed his fingers together to demonstrate, releasing yet another cloud of crusty flakes into the air.

"Yes, yes I am very well aware what became of us last time father disagreed with my plans. Thank you for reminding me." Lucifer snapped back, wishing that his new awakened sibling would stop nagging him about his past failures. "I am not rebelling."

Zambriem looked at him with some suspicion. "Do you swear?"

Lucifer just sighed. "Yes I swear."

"Truly swear? None of that phony stuff."

"Yes, yes, whatever offers makes you satisfied."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" Zambriem insisted, raising his hand as if to take an oath.

Rolling his eyes, and gritting his teeth Lucifer counted back from ten, then mimicked his brother's action and said: "I swear it. Now finally, can we get to business?"

"With you, it is always business." Zambriem mumbled. Moving like an eighty year old, he carefully sat down on a large boulder next to the stream, and gave his aching legs a good stretch. "Ah, that feels so incredibly good. You have no idea how awful it was to be standing up all the time. It had been pure agony."

"Zambriem, I know you have suffered because of the, perhaps tiny little mistake that I have made in the past, but I think we should put this all behind us now, and…well…you know, focus on the present?"

Lucifer paused when a huge black creature leaped down on wide spread wings from a nearby tree and perched on top of Zambriem's head. It gazed up at Lucifer with a mischievous twinkle in its beady little eyes.

"Ah master Crock, my good friend." Zambriem told the monstrous bird. "Master Crock and his family sleep in my crown every night." He explained to Lucifer. "He was born in the narrow cavity near my trunk on my second largest branch. I have know him since he was a chick." He scratched the ugly creature over his back feathers most affectionately. "You have no trouble recognizing me do you?" He muttered to his pet. "Can't very much say the same thing about you though." He added thoughtfully, while gazing up at Lucifer.

"What do you mean with that?" Lucifer huffed. He was getting increasingly convinced that Zambriem's long confinement had turned his brains into mush. "It's me alright inside this hideous human meat suit. Can't you see?"

"It's not your human form that is wrong." Zambriem replied. "You and I, you know, we used to be angels."

"We still are angels." Lucifer corrected him, rather stubbornly.

No." Zambriem shook his head, getting very upset and having absolutely none of it. "You know what I mean with this. We _used_ to be heavenly hosts. We can see every living creature in its purest form. As soon as you arrived at the riverside, you knew that I was Zambriem. You did not see a crooked old willow tree, you saw me."

"Yes, yes, and when you look at me you see your loving brother Lucifer Morningstar and not some biped monkey that our father has created when he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. I am aware that we can see through mortal vessels and recognize our own kind immediately, but what's your point here exactly?"

"I don't see you, Morningstar." Zambriem paused, finding it really hard to explain, he furrowed his massive brows. "At least, not the whole of you…It's like something is missing…a part of you is missing."

"What part?" There was an awful feeling of déjà vu that came over him. Zambriem's strange behavior suddenly reawakened the memory of his first few moments that he had spent in this current human form. He had this moment of clarity before, back at the abbey, when he was standing in the kitchen larder biting into an apple.

A sense of something truly important that he had completely forgotten, but could not afford to permit himself to forget again.

"What? What is missing?" Lucifer pressed on, realizing that the clarity wouldn't last and that he had very little time left. "Tel me Zambriem! What do you see?"

Zambriem gazed back at Lucifer with the expression of a dying fish on dry land. His mouth slowly opened, just when he was about to tell him, but then the message slipped from his mind and settled back deep into his sub-consciousness, far beyond his grasp.

"What…" Zambriem mumbled, lifting his hand and slowly massaging his temples. "What was I trying to say again?"

"I have truly no idea." Lucifer muttered. The urgency of the conversation that took place a mere second ago was now completely forgotten. It was as if the two fallen angels had been affected by a communal case of severe amnesia.

Lucifer threw his head back and let out a frustrated sigh. _Right, getting back to business, he reminded himself._

"My dear melancholic brother." He tried again. "Whatever grudge you may hold against me, the fact remains that I have freed you from what is, as you have so accurately pointed out, a very unfair and cruel punishment that our fa-"

"Stop wasting your breath on me Lucifer. I may be slow but I am very much aware that I owe you a favor." Zambriem interrupted him. "You don't need to remind me. I shall honor the old ways." He straightened his back and gazed at his brother with a tired expression on his face. "Just name your price and I shall do what must be done."

His answer pleased Lucifer a lot. "I want your help for a little project of mine. Nothing horribly offensive to our father, I swear." He added quickly, after he noticed the accusing look Zambriem was giving hem. "It's actually an absolution project. Something to surprise the old man, help him to get a bit of weight off his mighty shoulders."

"Absolution? For our sins?" Zambriem's eyes grew wide again with hope.

" Oh yes. Let me tell you this, if our father finds out what we are going to do for him, he is going to be so impressed! We will be back in heaven soaring over the silver city with our new set of wings before you can even drop down on your knees and say a little prayer."

"What do you exactly have in mind?"

The grin on Lucifer's lips widened till it stretched from ear to ear. "We are going to build a place for our father to house all the sinful human souls. I call it _hell_."

 **II**

The great hall of our ancestral home was festively decorated with holly and evergreens. Candles were lit in every dark corner to cast out the winter gloom, and a band of musicians played a string of well-liked merry tunes. It was the first day of Christmas, and my father had invited all the nobles of his lands to come and celebrate our savior's birth. The long wooden table that could sit more than 50 was decked with a feast of rich meats, dried fruit, fresh bread, and good strong wine. My father, being in a cheerful mood, had allowed me to sit with the adults, and my sweet mother had sneaked in a spoon of honey into my cup to make the wine more palatable, knowing I disliked the bitter taste.

"Richard." My oldest brother Edward called out as he rushed over with my brother George to my seat. "Come quickly. We're playing kiss and seek. Come and join us."

"What is kiss and seek exactly?" I asked, hopping behind them, trying to catch up with their pace. I was excited to join my brothers. Edward was by now 15 and George 13 years of age. Both were often occupied with all sorts of important things that young men apparently needed to learn to pass into full adulthood, and had little time for horseplay with their younger sibling.

"It's like hide and seek, but with girls." Edward replied, giving me a wink.

"Why do we need to play with the girls?" I asked, skewing up my face. "They are rubbish with swordplay, and cry when hit them too rough. Can't it be just the three of us?"

"I think our Richard is perhaps, still too young for this game." George commented.

"Nonsense, he is only too young if he didn't have two wiser and older brothers to watch over him. He wrapped an arm over my shoulder and punched me in the chest playfully. "Don't worry little brother, just do as we do and I promise it will be fun."

We entered the antechamber where we were greeted by the young daughters and sons of my father's kinsmen and serving nobles. Their ages ranged between that of mine and Edwards. They were dressed in their finest clothes and were all in a most cheerful mood. Edward and George bowed gallantly to the girls who were standing in a group away from the lads. They responded with timid giggles among themselves. The boldest and oldest among them threw flirtatious looks at Edward who, as my mother often proudly proclaimed to anyone who would like to hear, was fast blossoming into a most handsome young man.

"Right, now we are all here, let's just get started." Edward said, rubbing in his hands and looking around the group. "Who is first?"

There came more nervous laughter from the young ladies, while the lads teased eachother in good humor, pushing the most reluctant candidates forward.

"May I go first?" A willowy figure stepped up to my brother. Her large doe-like eyes captured Edward's gaze for a moment. Young Isabel Neville was as beautiful as she was graceful, and many of the girls looked upon her boldness with a visible touch of envy.

"Certainly." Edward replied. A servant handed him a red ribbon. "May I?"

Isabel nodded, flashing a smile at him as he carefully secured the blindfold. I noticed that when his fingers touched her swanlike neck by chance, she did not recoil, and after a short while, pink blushes started to appear on her snowy skin.

"What is the purpose of this strange game?" I asked George, who was like me, captivated by the scene. "Why is she blindfolded?"

"Isabel has to chase us without seeing us. You should stay away from her if you don't want to get caught."

What happens when she catches me?"

"As it is Isabel, I would say, it will be one of the luckiest thing that could ever happen to you, my little brother." He smirked, and gave me a sudden push so I lurched forward in her direction.

Meanwhile, Edward had taken Isabel by her hands and spun her around several times. "Count to ten before you start, and no peeking!" He let go of her and the young girl swayed a little on her feet. Disorientated but wearing a merry smile on her face, she stretched out her hands, tentatively taking tiny steps in the direction of her sniggering playmates. "Where are you all? It's no fun if you don't make any noise. How am I to find you like this?"

"Here I am!" One of the older boys cheered. "Catch me Isabel. I am yours!"

"No, take me!" another said, pushing forward towards her. "I am right here. Try to catch me my sweet lady!"

But Isabel ignored them all. Instead, she moved in the direction where she had last seen Edward, waving her hands in front as she swayed her head to listen.

"He's is behind you Isabel!" Her lady friends cried out. They shrieked in great excitement when she turned on their instructions. "Edward is right behind you!"

Edward jumped backwards just in time to not let Isabel latch on to him. Stepping on his toes, he crept in a semicircle towards me and George, who chuckled at the ridiculous sight of our brother being hunted like a deer in the woods.

"Where did he go now?" Isabel asked.

"He's there near the window, five steps to your left. He's standing next to George!" Her friends replied.

"Seems like Isabel has made up her mind who to hunt, and is rather stubborn about it." George said in a loud voice, given away his exact position.

Edward elbowed him hard in his ribcage and shushed. Meanwhile, Isabel had hastened her steps and was so close and held her arms so wide that the three of us, all with our backs against the window, could not easily escape.

"I think you're about to be hooked like a fish onto dry land, by dear brother." George chuckled, pushing Edward forward.

"Not while I am still swimming outside the netting." Edward remarked, shoving back.

"Or maybe, the lady will be happy with a smaller catch." With a push in the back by George, I was launched forward, and fell right into the open, waiting arms of Isabel.

Startled and much paralyzed with dread, I let her tighten her embrace and lock her hands behind the small of my back. "Got you now Edward." She said with a radiant smile. "See, you're not that difficult to find."

Her friends covered their mouths in shock, and were about to say something when Edward put his fingers on his lips, urging them to hold their tongue.

Isabel moved closer. I could smell her sweet perfume, a scent of roses that mixed with her sweat and body warmth into a concoction that bound my senses into a soft intoxicated state. My heart rate quickened. My throat felt dry. I looked urgently at my two brothers, and found George pressing his lips tightly together, trying very hard not to laugh. Edward drew up his eyebrows and just stared back with a playful smirk on his face.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, my lord?" Isabel finally asked. Pink blushes bloomed on her cheeks and she wet her soft rose petal lips in anticipation. I could feel her rushing heartbeat resonate in her bosom. Her sweet breaths, rising and falling in her chest, it filled my head with so much of her presence that the whole world just seemed to dissolve.

I looked once more at Richard for guidance. He gestured and mouthed silently that I should indeed give Isabel what she requested.

Standing on my toes, I leaned forward, and with my good hand gently caressed that flawless cheek. I pressed my lips on hers, and felt the softness of that touch, melting away all of my doubts and fears, bringing in me a state of such complete happiness that I prayed it would never end. She leaned into me, placing her soft hand on my beating heart for a moment, than pulled back, parting our connection with a satisfied smile.

"That was wonderful." Isabel said softly. She fumbled hastily to unfasten the knots of her blindfold. "That was one of the sweetest kisses I ever had…"

Her eyes widened in shock. Horrified, she let go of me and backed away, her kind expression shifting into that of a most aggrieved hard-faced queen. George and the others burst in a loud fit of laughter as Isabel kept looking at me, her face skewed up in disgust. She wiped her fingers across her lips, as if to frantically trying to remove poison.

"It was you?" She cried, tears brimming in her eyes, she swept a scornful look over her entourage. "Why didn't anyone say something?"

"My lord did not want us to." One of her friends replied timidly.

The wronged maiden cast an infuriated look at my brother.

"Oh come on it's just a game Isabel." Edward shrugged and tried to reconcile with her by flashing an appeasing smile, even though he had laughed at her expense like a brazen cock with all the others. "Surely no harm has been done by kissing my little brother."

"Yes, I don't understand why she is so upset." George added. "Warwick's oldest has caught herself a fine young Plantagenet. Wasn't that what she was so ambitiously after?"

My brother's words led to another round of mocking laughter. Humiliated, she buried her face in her hands and started weeping.

Not knowing what to do, and not much understanding why I was the cause of her great distress, I naively tried to console her.

"My sweet lady, I beg you don't weep. I didn't mean to make the others laugh at you."

"Get away from me!" She shouted, anger rising in her voice. "You foul disgusting little toad! You made me look like a fool!" She fled the room, leaving me standing alone in the center of the amused crowd.

"Never mind her Richard." Edward said, he came to me and slapped my back, treating it all like it was just an innocent jest. "Everyone knows that Isabel Neville can be a hateful she-dragon when she does not get her ways. Let us continue with our game. Who's next?"

"Maybe Richard wants to take a turn." George taunted. "But before we start, let me ask the servants to block off the exits before all the maidens try to flee out of this room at once."

"George." Edward sighed. "I beg of you, hold your not so clever tongue -"

Before Edward could finish his sentence, I pushed past my two brothers and ran out of the chamber. With every step, I felt my heart sink deeper and deeper into a pit that I did not know existed before. Isabel's words rang in my ears and stabbed me with countless holes that made the memory of her kiss now taste like bitter bile. I fled out into the garden, and huddled down among the roots of the ancient oaktree that grew below the east tower, hiding myself from the scorn of all the others. It was a cold Christmas day, and as evening fell the first snow of the season started to drift down, covering everything in a thin blanked of icy down.

Later, I heard my brothers call out my name as they searched for me by torchlight with a group of my father's servants. They did not find me, nor did I wish to be found by any of them. After a while, they gave up, and returned to the feast.

Night came and revealed a clear pitch-black sky, littered with pinpoint stars. The air became frosty and silent. Then came the crackling footsteps in the snow. It was followed by a golden beam that reflected the shine of a million tiny ice crystals, drifting in the wind.

"My lord, are you here?"

I squinted my eyes against the bright light cast by the oil lamp that shone in my face. It was held by a young woman, dressed in a long black cloak trimmed with black feathers. A heavy hood threw a long shadow over features.

"Your brothers lord Edward and George are looking for you. So are your father's men." Her voice was kind, but unfamiliar to me.

"Who are you?" I asked, realizing that I did not recognizing her as one of our household servants.

"I am a servant of lady Neville. Your brother Edward is very worried. He stopped the games and bid us all to go look for you."

"Leave me alone, and tell my brother that I am not coming." I replied stubbornly. "Tell him to continue his merry games and just pretend he does not have another brother."

The woman lowered her lamp and much to my surprise, took my hand. "You're freezing." She said, rubbing over my stiff cold fingers. "You should go back inside. You've been out far too long."

"Don't touch me." I sneered, and snatched back my hand. "Are you deaf? I order you to leave me be. Go away!"

Disobeying my commands, she looked back at me in silence, bright eyes shining from underneath that hooded shadow.

"You should not take to heart what just happened in there." She finally said.

"They all laughed at me. She called me an ugly toad." I replied, turning my face away.

"Words can do no harm if you don't let them."

"How would you know? You're just…" I wanted to say normal, but then changed my mind. "Just a servant."

Instead of being deterred by my rudeness, she folded her long dress between her legs and huddled down beside me between the ancient tangle of roots.

"I do know. You know why? I have been serving my lady for a good few years now. Lady Neville is as shallow as she is beautiful. She believes that the loveliness she sees in her reflection mirrors the exquisiteness of a better soul. And as she thinks like this, she will only have eyes for others like her."

"Like my brother Edward you mean." I bowed my head. "She hates me. She thinks I am hideous. I look like a monster, so my soul must be rotten as well."

"You are not a monster." She said softly. "Isabel is wrong. A man could look like the purest of angels, but harbor within him the most evil of thoughts."

"That is not what my our priest says. He tells us our appearance is exactly how God sees us. It is the way how he has made us." I told her, recalling not without resentment, how the awful old man always made me say extra long prayers, so that I would spend hours on my knees in the family chapel in an attempt to save my most imperfect soul.

"Then your priest is also wrong." She scooped up a ball of snow. "Look." She placed the snowball in my hands and blew her warm breath over it. The snow melted, revealing an ugly black pod with dried blunt spikes curling all around its core.

"The way you look has nothing to do with what is inside." She folded her hands over mine. The warmth made my icy fingers tingle. Gently, she blew over it for a second time. The black pod started to shimmer like an amber in a dying fire. The shine grew and grew, till it became bright orange. The pod split open and out grew a strong vine, adorned with golden thorns and leaves. It formed a large bud at the end, which sprang open, revealing a large dazzling rose with petals made of countless butterflies, each with an incredible array of color. She blew once more, and the butterfly petals fluttered away into the air, fading and shrinking till it became a drift of snow. When I looked again, the magical bloom was gone.

"You see?" She told me. "You have a good heart Richard, and you're still young. Don't let the unkind words of others weigh it down and poison it so soon."

She stood up, brushed the snow from her dress, then held out her hand to me.

"Shall we go back, Richard?"

 **III**

I woke with snow drifting inside my dirty cage. It had formed thin lines of powdery white on the wooden bars. The cart was moving in a jolting fashion, shaking the cage from side to side. Disorientated and with my throat parched, I scraped off the thin layer of snow and sucked the melting liquid into my mouth. The canvas that Audemar had spanned over the top of my dwelling had many holes, and failed to provide shelter against the bitter cold. Shivering in my thin rags, and with the world spinning in front of my eyes, I pulled myself up against the bars to peer outside. A winter landscape filled with barren trees, their many branches heavy with snowfall, stretched out as far as I could see. Nothing else seemed to exist except for this repetitive scene of wood and ice.

Stronger jolts followed as the cart drove over a series of potholes. I landed back on the floor. Too weakened to even grab hold on to something, I rolled around like a pebble in a shoe, retching and vomiting as nausea took hold.

"You're not well uncle."

It was my little nephew. Oh how incredibly happy I was to be visited by him again. During these long years of torment, my one time avenging ghost had steadily become a great comfort to me. "I think I have a fever." I murmured, my words were badly formed by my useless slurring tongue.

"You are burning up."

"My father was holding a Christmas feast in the great hall. Everyone was there. Your father Edward was there, and your uncle George. Do you remember him or were you still too young? You used to love him. He was full of parlor tricks."

"Your wounds are infected. It has poisoned your blood."

"I kissed your aunt Isabel. She was horrified and cried a whole lot about it. I ran outside to hide in the old oak, it was snowing, just like today." I swallowed and blinked my eyes several times, but the world remained a mist of vague shapes and distant noises, with only my nephew's light a somewhat steadied beacon for my troubled senses to focus on.

"I saw your father, just a moment ago. Where did he go? C-could you please help me look for him? I want to tell him. I want him to know that I am no longer angry with him."

"You're delirious. We need to get you somewhere inside, and keep you warm."

"And George. I need George here too. We must send out a post-horse to fetch him out of heaven."

"Uncle, listen. These men need to stop traveling and take care of you. Stay another day on the road like this, and you will die. Do you hear me?"

"They won't stop. We cannot stay in one place or revisit old places. We are no longer welcome there, and there will be no coins for my masters. We've been moving for ages." I muttered. "North. North. Always north. Like the wild geese in spring."

"Do you have any idea where they are heading?"

"Round and round we go." I whispered to myself, and twirled my head, drawing circles. "Round and round and round I follow my masters, straight to my ruin."

"Listen to me, I am going to see where they are taking you. Stay awake while I am gone."

"N-no, no don't go." A pang of panic stabbed me in my heart. "Don't leave. I beg you gentle nephew, stay a little while longer." My voice sounded diminutive and small, like that of a frightened child, pleading not to be abandoned.

"I will be back soon." He said determinedly.

The darkness became so much more intolerable after that faint light was gone.

TBC


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 5**

 **I**

The two men who were sitting on the box seat of the twospan that ventured through the lonely forest road, looked both truly miserable.

"Are you sure you're holding that map right?" Greybeard commented.

Audemar gave his companion a foul look. "You're saying I am too stupid to read a map?"

"I am saying that we've been traveling up north for four consecutive days now. I haven't seen a town or castle or even a dilapidated dung farm on the way. We were heading to York from Ravenspur, which should have been a two days ride. Three if we were really slow." Greybeard paused, fixing his gaze on Audemar.

"And?"

"Do you see the great city of York any where near here?" He waved wildly with his hands. "Or perhaps it's hidden from our view behind these barren twigs and we are just standing right in front of the city gates?"

"Maybe it's around the next bend?" Audemar tried.

Greybeard sighed and snatched the scroll from him. "Here." He scolded, giving him the reigns. "Take this, and let _me_ look at the map."

To be fair, road maps in the Middle ages were not clear cut and precise. They often only depicted a straight road on which the landmarks were drawn with a rough estimate of miles scribbled in between. No junctions were indicated. Similarly, the map these two fine gentlemen of enterprising spirit had for guidance, was only showing a straight line between London and the villages and cities of the north. It was up to Greybeard to guess at which exact point during their journey they had diverted.

"Blasted! We should have passed three towns by now if we were still on the right track, but we haven't seen any one of them." Aggravated, he crumbled up the scroll and tossed it back into the carriage.

"Could we have missed it?"

Greybeard sucked in air through his nostrils and exhaled slowly, blowing steam.

"Yes, we could have, if we were sodden blind! We took the wrong turn you simpleton! The last time we were on the right track was near Alnwick. That's a three days ride away."

"Then what, are we going back?"

Greybeard paused for a moment to think.

"How is he?" He nodded with his head at the covered cage in the back of carriage.

Audemar shrugged. "He was still alive this morning, but he made a bloody mess again. I don't think we should feed him for a while. It's all coming back out as soon as you put something in. It's no use."

"We have to find a local leech to treat him. Otherwise he's not going to last long."

"Don't you think it's a waste of coins anyway?" Ademar asked.

"What would you otherwise suggest?"

"Oh I don't know. We could just dump him in a ditch nearby." His companion opted, rather hopefully. "Let the poor bugger die by himself? He has already made us a good profit. We could split the gains and head back to the south. Go into a first town we come across and find some nice ladies to warm our beds. Perhaps have a good hot meal for once and not the vile porridge we've been having for days."

"We can do all of that later, if he gets better, we can yet make much more profit." Greybeard reminded him.

"Do you believe so?" Audemar cocked an eyebrow at him. "The current state he's in I fear not even our good lord Jesus himself could cure him. Admit it, he is one step away from turning into a cold corpse, and I for one am sick of spending every waking hour on the road like this. To be frank, I would rather stick my nose up the crotch of a syphilis whore than to go smell that disgusting stench that comes from his rotting wounds again."

Audemar reigned in the horses as they approached a crossroad. At the exact junction point, amid a growth of young oaks, stood a wooden scaffold. From its sideway pole dangled a rusty metal cage no larger than a coffin. Locked inside, sat in upright position, the stiff frozen skeletal remains of a man. His bony legs and feet were dangling out from the bottom, and swung lightly in the cold northern breeze. It was a most gruesome sight to which both men did not wish to pay too much attention. When the cart came to a full stop, they contemplated their options. To the east, there was a narrower pathway diverting from the main road that meandered up the slopes.

"Which way now?" Greybeard finally asked, breaking the silence.

"I say we stick to this road. Go straight on."

"We have been on this blasted road for three days. We haven't seen any recognizable landmarks."

Audemar pointed out the unlucky dead man. "I would call that a landmark. They usually hang criminals close to villages to scare off thieves and cutthroats from coming in. We should be near one." He added, convinced of his smartness.

"Yes, but it doesn't mean that the village is straight ahead of us, does it?"

The wind suddenly picked up and wildly rocked the hangman's cage, making the bony knuckles rattle against the rusted bars.

"Can we make a decision with a bit more haste? I don't fancy staying here for very long." Audemar muttered, spooked by the scene.

"It's just a dead man in a cage." Greybeard snorted. "As you have so cleverly pointed out, we have one soon enough in the back of our cart. I say we pick the narrow road east."

"And I say we stay on the main road. That mountain path looks dangerous. It's much narrower and much steeper. Our carriage could slip."

"I am not going to let you decide. You've chosen the wrong turn last time. That's why we are in this sodden mess in the first place!"

"I did not…"

A strong sudden burst of wind swept the snow from the branches and rocked the hanging cage so violently that it made the ropes that held it snap. The cage with the skeleton swung to the ground, bones rattling loudly as it rolled down hill. It came to a halt again, right in the middle of the main road.

"Don't look so startled, you wet infant." Greybeard commented, noticing the paleness on his companion's face. "That was just the wind."

Audemar opened and closed his mouth, mimicking a fish on dry land, as he pointed with a trembling hand at the unnatural sight in front. The cage with the skeleton slowly rose upright, emitting a faint ghostly light. The jaw of the skull dropped open. Then it began to snap open and shut repeatedly, chattering its teeth as if it had a furious hunger to bite the living.

"Lord save us." Greybeard muttered, his voice muted by shock.

"It's the ghost of the villain hanged!" Audemar cried out. "He is coming for us!"

Greybeard rushed to take over the reigns into his shaking hands. "This place is cursed! This road is cursed! Quickly! We have to get away from here!"

He whipped the horses hard. The carriage wheeled around in such haste that it almost keeled over, and at great galloping speed, the horses bolted up the narrow winding side road, away from the haunted junction.

 **II**

The cart suddenly shook wildly, and I was flung to the back. Landing hard with my stomach pressed against the bars, I heaved up all the fluid what was left in my stomach, before a second jolt sent me tumbling on my side.

The light of my nephew shone brightly through the canvas that covered my cage. As it passed through, it soon took the form of a human child again.

"What's happening?" I asked most frightfully, while the violent motion continued, shaking me around in the tiny space if I was set adrift in a wooden box at sea.

"Hold on uncle. I have frightened these men so that they went off the wrong path. They wanted to take you to York, but we are now too far up north to go back."

"Where are we going?" I pushing my head against my chest, hoping it would steady the whirling inside my head.

"We are heading for a small village nearby. I found it as I searched the area, hovering high above the forest. It's not far away and we will reach it before nightfall. Uncle? Do you hear me? Don't fall asleep."

Feverous and delirious, I shut my eyes to stop my blurred vision from making me sick.

 **III**

The carriage finally stopped, but the swirling inside my head did not.

"We have made it uncle."

I opened my eyes and saw a dim light doubling, then tripling, and so on, till it had multiplied in to a swarm of tiny lights, dancing in my vision.

"Where are we?" I murmured, tasting bile in my mouth.

"We have arrived at the village. There will be help soon, you'll see. Hold courage."

To my relief, the swarm of confusing lights began to fuse, reducing in numbers till I saw only two, then one. Slowly, the world took some recognizable form again. Still lying on the floor, I held my head back to look over my shoulder. Through a gap in the canvas, I saw a row of hovels, small and crooked, heavily leaning into each other of old age. The windows were boarded up. Large white crosses had been painted across the dilapidated doors.

"Oh my dear nephew." My heart filled with dread when I recognized the tell-tale signs from my many travels during my brother's military campaigns. "I don't think there will be any help."

"This place is a plague infested hell hole." I heard Greybeard declare. He had dismounted and walked into my view. "Just our luck to ride right in here after dark."

"Do you believe it is completely abandoned?" Audemar asked.

"Not a living soul I've seen on the road leading to town, and no-one out in the streets." Greybeard answered, spitting on the ground and looking around with his hands on his hips. "There is no smoke coming from the chimneys. No light shining through the cracks of the doors and shutters. No watchers assigned to guard the pest folks." He kicked at something large that was lying in the mud by the road side. "No one to take care of the rotting carcasses of the dead farm animals. I say everyone is gone, and for a good while too."

"I don't want to spend the night here." Audemar replied, sounding quite anxious. "Let's move out of this cursed place. Set up camp back in the woods for tonight."

Greybeard did not respond but gazed thoughtfully at the boarded hovels, then turned, and looked back at the road from which we came. He took out his dagger and said; "Not so much haste. There may still be something worthwhile here for us."

"Are you mad? I am not going in there to loot! These are houses marked with the warnings for pestilence. The families who lived here were locked inside by the king's army to keep the disease from spreading. If we go in there, there is a chance we will get infected too."

"If those poor buggers inside are still alive, yes then we can get sick, but everyone knows you cannot get the plague from the dead. If so, all the gravediggers whose job is to bury them will all soon be six feet under."

"I've heard plenty of tales in the taverns that gravediggers do perish too."

"That's just a bunch of old wives tales! The plague comes from dirty air, from the breath of the sick. Corpses don't breathe." Greybeard took a crowbar from the back of the cart. "Come on, give me a hand instead of just standing there, crying like a hysterical maid. We could be out before midnight if we do this fast!"

Audemar reluctantly started to help pull the boards away from the windows, removing them nail by nail with the warped end of a hammer. Both men were still busy breaking into the hovels, when a sudden noise was heard, coming from a narrow alleyway between the buildings. The two ceased their devil's work immediately, and spooked, they glanced around for the source of that strange sound.

A black shadow flew out from behind a stack of firewood. Although there had been plenty occasions when it was the other way around, I had never heard Audemar scream in terror before. He was quite good at it when a monstrous large wolf with a coat as black as midnight and a pair of piercing green eyes took hold of his throat. He kept screaming till the beast silenced him by chewing through one of his vital arteries, spraying a mist of blood into the air.

"Help me!" He slurred, gargling blood, but his frightened companion had already fled. What followed was an incomprehensible muddle of pitiful utterances that finally died when a second wolf, silver coated and as monstrous as the first, took Audemar's head inside his maul and bit down, crushing skull.

Having by now scrambled back up the box seat, Greybeard took the reigns and struck the startled horses. I was propelled to the back of the cage as we rushed through the streets at neck-breaking speed.

This sudden commotion drew the attention of the two wolves. They abandoned their bloody supper and directly went in pursuit. As we rushed over the frozen muddy path away from the damned village and back into the forest, more wolves appeared, almond eyes shining behind the black trunks, and their shaggy coats glistening with ice crystals in the pale reflection of a snow moon. Joining the pack in their hunt, they snapped at a flapping corner of the canvas, hanging on to it with their full weight till it tore off. With the top of my cage now exposed, and the star lit sky flying by above my head, I cast a frightened gaze at the front of the carriage.

Six of the wolves were attacking the horses, biting at their legs and flinging themselves on their hinds to reach the necks. Two others were gaining from the side and made several attempts to jump on the cart. Meanwhile, we reached a track of the road that wound steeply uphill, and became then narrower and narrow, with the corners sharpening with every turn.

We were going much too fast. The back wheel hit a fallen branch, the wooden structure groaned and croaked, and the cart flung on its side with its wheels spinning. The upturned vehicle slowed down the horses almost to a standstill. The wolf pack made good use of this, and flung themselves onto the animals' soft bellies.

Greybeard found himself trapped under the box seat. While he screamed for Jesus and the saints to save him, one wolf took his right, and another his left arm, and a third grabbed his head. Then the three of them twisted and pulled savagely, each in a different direction, till they managed to rip him apart.

Frightened out of my mind, I crawled as far away from this horrific scene as my tiny prison allowed me to, hoping fiercely that the beast would have their fill with these savage kills and let me live. But then the black wolf cast his green eyes on me and warily, he approached. He pushed his muzzle between the bars and opened his maul wide, but was not able to reach me from any side as long as I stayed in the center of the cage. Angry to be kept away from his next meal, he gnawed ferociously at the wooden bars, pushing the cage away from him, making it glide towards a steep drop at the side of the road. As the structure continued to slip over the snow, I observed with growing dread how we were edging closer and closer to the abyss, till the cage was balancing right on the edge.

Desperate, I tried to shift my weight to the front, but I had been starved and did not weigh much, and the beast kept attacking. Worse still, the wooden bars now began to dent inward, then splintered, granting the wolf a wide enough gap in between to push his muzzle further inside. His snapping jaws just about missed my face by an inch, when the cage tipped and went crashing down the hillside. As it tumbled down, the cage hit several stones, breaking it apart. I was flung out of the wreckage, and kept falling, the snow and the bare bushes in the undergrowth slowing down my speed, till I finally came to a full stop on a narrow slope.

I tasted blood and snow on my lips when I raised my head from the frosty ground. The black wolf was standing in front of me, his heavy panting passing steam clouds into the air. Drops of dark crimson dripping from his opened maul onto the pale white of the virgin snow. Too exhausted, too weakened and too much in pain to fight or flee any longer, I shut my eyes and pray to God that it would be over soon. I already felt the wolf's hot breath and the weight of his paws on my back when an arrow flew through the air. It pierced through the creature's cheek, sending him howling. A second show followed swiftly, and the arrow pierced the animal's side.

The wolf swerved around, as black-clad figure approached. He was arching his bow while lighting his path with a torch in his hand.

The injured but still infuriated beast came running at him, but the archer remained unnerved, and kept stepping forward in a determined pace before shooting another arrow, which went straight between the wolf's eyes.

The monstrous beast collapsed.

Growls and howls came from the surrounding woods. Many pairs of eyes lit up in the dark, drawing narrowing, threatening circles around us. The hooded figure waved his torch at the remaining wolfs to keep them at bay. From his backpack he took a phial of green liquid, and poured it over the brittle sticks that he picked up from the forest floor. When he held them in the flames they flared up most violently.

"Get away from him!" The voice that came from the stranger was light, not like a man's. He flung the burning sticks at the beasts. As soon as the flames hit their coats it immediately caught fire. The blaze became so thick so very rapidly, that the burning animals soon resembled open fire braziers, swerving between the trees on stumbling legs. Panicking, the pack ran back into the forest, setting fire to the lowest branches during their flight to safety.

I was close to losing consciousness when the archer stepped towards me through this strange mirage of blood drenched snow and burning ice. Just when he removed his hood to reveal his face, my eyes rolled back and darkness claimed me.

TBC


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 6**

 **I**

 **Bosworth, 1485**

The green fields of Bosworth had transformed into a bloodbath.

Everywhere one looked, men in armor were murdering each other. Soldiers with blood and mud caked on their faces were cutting, stabbing, and slicing their way through the chaos. A knight tumbled from his horse with a lance embedded in his breastplate. Horses who had lost their masters galloped around in wild frantic fear, trampling many under their hooves. The clatter of blades striking on blades, and the howls and cries, pleas and prayers of injured and dying soldiers filled the air and reached all the way to heaven.

Amidst this all, a young Tudor soldier was ambushed by one of the Yorkies, and found himself crawling over the muddy grounds with his belly sliced open, backing away from an enemy that held hem at sword's end. Before he could start begging for his life, a shadow appeared, right behind his assaulter. A fluid swing of the sword, and the head of his enemy was severed from the shoulders. The headless torso dropped on its knees and slumped over, revealing the knight standing behind. His face was hidden behind the visor of his helmet. He did not wear the colors of the York king, but neither did he support the sigils of the Tudor army.

"Oh thank you! Thank you for saving my li-" The Tudor soldier abruptly stopped with his expressions of gratitude when the knight stuck his sword through his throat. As the dying young man gazed up at him with a white-rimmed puzzled look, the knight put his boot on his chest and pushed him away to retreat the bloody blade. Before the body of the Tudor soldier hit the ground, the knight was already spinning around, ready to take another swing at whoever was so unlucky to get near him.

"Raguel!" Someone shouted from behind.

Hesitantly, the knight lowered his sword. Grim focus dissipated from his stance when he recognized the man who had called out to him. "Lucifer? Lucifer, is that you?"

"It's been a long time my brother." Lucifer said, with a warm grin.

The knight took off his helmet, revealing a stern, determined face with short cropped auburn hair, angular features and a well-kept goatee beard. As he embraced his fallen brother, his eyes set on the strange looking man standing beside Lucifer. "Zambriem? Well I'll be damned! You're here as well?" He went over and embraced him tightly. "I can't believe my eyes. Did the old man set you both free?"

"No, not exactly." Lucifer replied, nimbly dodging an axe that was wielded in his direction. "We are on free footing without our father's permission."

"Ah." Raguel muttered, giving it a second of thought. "So you are fugitives."

"Indeed."

"I take that the others are looking for you."

"Undoubtedly." Lucifer replied with a roguish grin. "You are not going to tell on us, are you?"

"Me?" Raguel scoffed. "Right, do I look like I am still one of them?" He pointed with his thumb at his back. "They took my wings away a long time ago. Whatever bothers the hosts, it's no longer my concern. Duck!" Raguel thrust his sword forward. The blade flew mere inches away from Lucifer's head as he bend down just in time to remove himself from the direct line of attack. When he rose up again, Raguel was already busying himself with prying his blade out of a York soldier's ruined eyesocket.

"So you are not going to betray us?" Zambriem gazed worriedly at the blood dripping from his brother's blade.

"Of course not." Raguel patted him on his shoulder. "You are both safe with me." He promised solemnly.

"Speaking of safety, what is going on here? It's like a slaughterhouse. Which war are these humans fighting in at the moment?" Lucifer enquired.

"It's the war between the Yorkies and the Lancastrians. It's a big one. They will call it the war of the roses later on."

Lucifer shrugged and returned to him a most vacant stare.

"You have never heard of it?"

"I beg you pardon, but I have been out of touch with the world's events for a long time. I didn't have the opportunity to catch up yet. Anyway, It's probably like any other war these humans wage, all bloody and boring and to its core, rather pointless."

"Well, this one has been going on for ages, although this is going to be the final battle. That York king Richard, he really is a nasty piece of work." Raguel grinned. He had a very generous smile made him look gleeful and manic at the same time. "Excuse me for a moment." He swung around and decapitated another Tudor soldier who was about to charge at him with a lance. "The nobles on the York side won't want to continue after the dust settles." He added, after he had decapitated the poor sod and kicked the head away. "They were only fighting for him because he had them on a tight bloody leash."

"Is that so." Lucifer replied, suppressing a sigh, as he found that these finer details of local politics bored him. "Could we perhaps go somewhere else to talk? I find it rather difficult to carry on a civilized conversation when all around us these humans are hacking each other to bits."

"Oh." Raguel furrowed his brows in surprise, unable to comprehend how this violent place could not be everyone's cup of tea. "Alright. Guess I can always come back to make it to Henry Tudor's victory speech." He cleaned the blood form his sword with a handful of grass and sheathed it. "This way then my friends."

With one dismissive wave of his hand, he forced his will on the fighting men. The clashing troops parted like the red sea, allowing the three fallen angels to make their way through the brutal battle without so much of gaining a scratch on their skin.

"I know a nice place in London, a tavern that is build in 1612." Raguel proposed to the others. "We will go there around 1625. That's the best time to visit. That's when place is still buzzing with a merry mood and the bastard landlord doesn't yet water down his ale too much. We can sit down, have a few pints, and talk in private."

Stepping carelessly over and on the many corpses and would be corpses, and fully ignoring the horrors of axe wounds, cascading guts, and blinded and crippled men, they soon came to the edge of the battlefield. With a flick of his wrist, Raguel opened up the portal in time that looked like mirror of blue and white light, twirling violently in vortex form. All angels had this gift, and they used it frequently to cross through time and space.

Lucifer was the first to step through. He was greeted on the other side by the racket of a cheerful bar crowd, while his sensitive nose was immediately assaulted by a thick stench of wet ale-soaked straw, sweat, and day old puke.

"Let's take that table over there." Raguel said after he had crossed over with Zambriem. He was pointing out a cozy dark corner at the back end of the tavern. The three of them sat down at a wobbly wooden table on equally wobbly benches. If with a merry atmosphere, Raguel meant that there was a noisy, rowdy crowd eager to drink themselves to ruin, he had the place well-described. Lucifer could barely hear himself think.

"Hey sweetheart!" Raguel raised up his hand to get the attention of the barmaid. "Get us three strong ales, and one of your best edible cheeses." He spat on the floor and slapped her on her backside when she scuttled away to fix his order.

"Why did you do that?" Zambriem asked, visibly disgusted by his behavior.

"I am just blending in with the locals." Raguel explained. "They expect this sort of behavior around here. Wouldn't do it if we were in this place a couple of centuries later." He added, while he wiped his hand clean on his tunic. You never knew what you could get from these tavern wenches.

"What happens a couple of centuries later?" Zambriem asked.

"You both have not been venturing through the time stream much?" Raguel noted.

"I have done some traveling." Lucifer replied. "But it was mainly limited to these last couple decades and to the territories of France and England. Most of it was because I was looking for you and Zambriem."

"I haven't heard from you guys in ages. Not after the rebellion. What happened to you both?" Raguel finally dared to ask.

"I fear we were punished most cruelly by our heavenly father." Lucifer replied in a grave voice. "He had sent poor Zambriem to earth not only to suffer amongst the mortals, but he had also turned him into a tree. He's been spending most of human history in some sort of vegetated state. I doubt he was even aware of the passing of time. I found him in the north of France by following a girl who had become suicidal. I freed him from his nasty predicament only a few weeks ago."

"My poor brother." Raguel muttered, greatly saddened by this revelation. Although he did wonder how much of his old self had returned now that Zambriem walked free. He looked much distracted, gazing away from his companions at the table, and never meeting his brothers' eyes when he was addressed. It was if his physical body was here, but his mind and soul had been left behind in France.

"What about you Lucifer? What happened to you?"

Lucifer leaned forward, his face wearing a most cynical grin. "Our father tried to be tad more lenient with me." He pressed his lips into a thin white line before his continued. "He cast me into the chaoplasm. He imprisoned me in the last remains of the darkness that once existed before his creation of the universe."

"The chaoplasm?" Raguel mumbled, taken aback by the severity of their father's sentence. "But that is horrific. That place is devoid of anything, of life, of light. It is…"

"Without hope. Pure unadulterated desperation." Lucifer finished his sentence for him with a cold lingering stare.

"No wonder you didn't wait for him to let you out. Poor man, how you must have suffered."

"Dwelling for so long in that solitary place, I must admit, I came very close to insanity." Lucifer muttered, fluttering his eyes as he recalled the soul-destroying boredom and the crushing loneliness of that cursed place, of just having no one else to talk and listen to for eons and eons. It was enough to drive even an immortal and almighty being such as himself close to suicide.

"What about you?" Lucifer asked, forcing himself to snap out of these darkest of memories.

"Banishment to earth. I've been stuck in this ridiculous human vessel ever since. I guess I was lucky. Compared to what father had done to you and Zambriem, I really have no right to complain."

"And now you spend your days fighting for this tyrant king?" Lucifer enquired.

"Me? Oh don't be ridiculous! I don't fight for any of these disgusting mortals!" Raguel leaned forward, and whispered in a dangerously low voice. "I fight, because I like _killing_ them."

Lucifer felt content, for he recognized in his brother's eyes the wrath that had been smoldering deep inside his brother's heart. Under this deceptively calm surface, Raguel was still very much the angel of vengeance.

"There is no other time in history when it's easier to cut them down by the hundreds without any real consequences than during a long bloody war." Raguel further explained with some delight.

"You still blame them for what happened to us then?" Lucifer opted most innocently.

"Of course humanity _is_ to blame! They are the bloody cause of all of our misery!'

"Well, if we are reasonable and think about it, it was Lucifer who came up with the plan to rise up against our father. It had nothing to do with the humans." Zambriem mumbled with a sudden presence of mind that was very rare for him.

Lucifer shot a nasty look at Zambriem that was hardly noticed by his absent-minded sibling, but he did not need to worry. Raguel's mind was only following one rigid train of thought, and nothing could sway him from that path.

"Stop blaming our brother." Raguel told Zambriem. "It wasn't his fault that our father chose the side of these biped apes instead of his heavenly children. Think about it. We were his first borns. His most obedient children who followed his wise counsels without a shred of doubt in our hearts." He sucked in an angry breath of air and pounded on his chest. "We were his most loyal children. From all of his creations, we were the most deserving of his greatest gift, this free will that these foul humans squander away so easily with their pettiness and greed. When our noble brother Lucifer finally dared to request the same gift for us, did he reward us with what we most desired and most deserved? Did he treat us with kindness and understanding, when we dared to finally stand up to him to ask for our own autonomy? No! He punished us, labeled us as rebels, and cast us out of the silver city! He treated us like were lower than the lowest of his beasts!"

In his rage, he slammed his fists on the tabletop and almost knocked over the pints of ale that the barmaid had just brought over. "Face it Zambriem!" He raged. "Our father does not love us. He loves these humans. He has forgotten all about us. If Lucifer had not set you free, you will still be rooted to the earth with your branches to heaven, begging for his for mercy and never receiving it till the sun sets in the east and all of time has ended."

"We indeed have a most severe father." Lucifer concluded with a dramatic sigh after he had listened most contently to Raguel's fevered ramblings. He understood now that he did not need to do much to convince Raguel of the legitimacy of his goals. "You are right." Lucifer continued. "We have lost our father's love to these lowly insolent creatures that he had allowed to inherit the earth. But that does not mean that we are without hope." he leaned forward to Raguel, and his voice lowered to a whisper. "It does not mean we cannot regain our father's love."

"And how shall we do that?" Raguel scoffed.

"We are free, aren't we?" Lucifer leaned back and spread out his hands in a grand gesture. "Despite the horrible circumstances, we have endured. We are now even here on earth, far away from the restrictions imposed on us by heaven. In a sense, we have as much autonomy over our actions as these humans around us."

"Yes, yes I realize that, but what to you do with it?" Raguel asked, almost in desperation. It did not elude Lucifer the pure irony of the fact that the price that his brother had fought so hard to obtain, had been in a certain way granted to him by their creator. But now he had it, he did not know what to do with it, and instead of being grateful, he was actually burning with resentment. It was the way Raguel's mind worked. He simply could not justify his own existence without hatred. The desire for retribution was what kept the furnace of his heart alight.

"That's precisely what I asked myself, a few decades ago." Lucifer said with a smile dawning on his lips. "I found my purpose, and so did Zambriem, with a little help. The question is now, my dear brother, would you like to know yours?"

"Do I get to make these humans to suffer?" Raguel asked, without knowing, clenching his hands into tight fists.

"I could not imagine any way in which my ambitions could be fulfilled without catering to your most violent desires." Lucifer replied.

"Then I am all ears." Raguel smirked, downing his ale in one long gulp.

 **II**

My unconsciousness lifted slowly, surfacing from a deep swamp into a dreamlike state that veiled my sense of reality. Long locks of dark hair dangled down. A woman's face hovered above mine. A women's hand, soft and warm, touched my forehead, and cooled it with a damp cloth.

I squinted my eyes at the female form and weakly waved her hand away. Is this Margaret? Am I back in my cell in the king's dungeons?

"Are you awake, dog?" The red queen whispered in my ear, sending my heart into a deep dark pit of despair. "You are just back in time." She grabbed my left arm and harked her long vulture-like talons through my flesh. "You're back in time to meet the devil!"

I cried out in pure terror and pulled away from her, turning my face towards the wall.

"You're ailing." Her voice was light, much younger then that of Margaret. It lacked the undertone of bitter resentment. I gazed at her once more, beads of fevered sweat dripping from my brows, and saw not Margaret, but a woman with a moon-pale face with a set of piercing green eyes, framed by long locks of black hair.

I kept my eyes fixed on her as she lifted my head, brought a cup to my lips and urged me to drink. Struggling, I still managed to take a mouthful, although swallowing was painful and the taste was vile.

"I know you." The bitterness of her brew clung onto my tongue and I sucked on it absentmindedly, while trying hard to stir my memory. I recalled images of a frosty night one Christmas many years ago. A servant girl searching for me in the snow, and finding me between the tangle of roots of the old oak tree. Then the elusive vision was gone and Margaret's face emerged and fused with the face of the young woman.

"No, not you." Shaking my head fervently to this most frightful sight. "You're not Margaret." I told her, squinting shut my eyes several times in the hope that the nightmare vision would disappear, but the demonic double-faced woman stubbornly remained.

"You should rest." She said, speaking with two mouths at once. "Sleep. You need to heal."

 **III**

It took two days for my fever to die down. Another two more to be able recognize the world around me again. When finally I woke in the early morning of the fifth day, the sun was shining through a small window by my bedside, revealing the dust that lingered in the stagnant air of a small wooden cabin. The dark-haired woman was sitting with her back turned to me. She was tending a pot with a sour smelling brew that was slowly bubbling over crackling flames in the fireplace.

I stirred, struggled into an upright position, and ran a trembling hand over my sweaty face.

"You're awake?" She came and laid a hand on my forehead. Her touch was gentle, and cool against my skin. "Fever is completely gone. That's good news." She wiped her hand over the folds of her dress, and pushed a cup into my hands.

"Where am I?" I asked her, closing my fingers around the hot cup. It contained the same black liquid that she had given me during my fever. I recognized the smell, which was rather repellent.

"You're a guest in my house sir. I took you in after I found you in the forest. Do drink this before it gets cold."

Warily, I did as I was told. Now that I was more awake and my senses had somewhat returned, the liquid seemed even fouler than before. I could not refrain from skewing my face after swallowing it.

"Horrible isn't?" She said with a little smile. "Believe me its not going to taste any better if you leave it standing for too long."

She dipped two fingers in my cup and scooped out what appeared to be the remains of cooked beetles, which she threw in the fire behind her. The crushed insect shells made a brief hissing, then a popping sound when it hit the flames. I crinkled up my nose even more.

"Oh come on, its not poison." She said when she saw that I was still staring at the brew without my lips touching it. "I didn't spend so much effort on keeping you alive for the last couple of days, just to kill you now you are finally getting better. This helps to remove the toxins from your blood and will keep down your fever. So drink up."

I brought the cup back to my lips, and cautiously took a tiny tip. It was then that she tilted the bottom, pouring most of the content straight into my

mouth.

"There is a good lad." With a satisfied little smile she took the empty cup from my hand. "All gone now. You are off the hook for the next four hours."

I coughed up whatever part of the foul liquid had accidentally spilled over into my air pipe, and dried my chin with the back of my hand.

"Who are you?" I managed to ask between coughs.

"I am Ophelia, the daughter of Randel of York, the healer."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Like my father, I am also a healer. You were injured, so I brought you here to heal." She said, seemingly not aware of my suspicion of her motives. "You were very lucky that I was on the road that night. Normally, I find the strangers who are so very unwise to venture out into these parts after dark, in a far worse condition after the wolfs have their way with them."

"Wait." My muddled mind still turned like wheels covered by a sticky viscous goo, but I was starting to put some of pieces together. I had noticed her voice, her black cloak and dress. "The hooded figure in the forest, it was you who saved me from being devoured by the wolves?"

"Yes."

"It was you? You were the archer who shot the black wolf dead? The vicious one with the green eyes?"

"Yes." She replied again in a matter of fact manner.

"And you set the beasts on fire and drove them back into the woods?" I added with astonishment.

"Yes." She raised her brows. "Yes, yes, yes! Why are you so flabbergasted?"

"Because…well, look at you. You're a woman. It can't be you." I blurted out, looking her up and down, taking in her willowy frame. "How could you draw a bow? Or-or fight off a pack of wolves?" I rambled, recalling the sweet perfumed ladies at court, dainty, delicate, and weak-willed, and absolutely rubbish at anything that concerned matters of warcraft, who fainted at the sight of a single drop of blood and handled swords like they were cradling babes with unusually sharp teeth. "Forgive me, but a woman does not have the courage nor the strength - "

My heart fluttered when I saw her pick up the bow that hung above the fireplace.

"You think I cannot shoot an arrow because I am not a man?" Calmly, she arched the bowstring and aimed two arrows at me at the same time.

"No please don't!" Before I could shrink back, she fired the shot. The two arrows pierced right through the wall behind me, each of them mere the length of an eyelash away from my neck.

"Want me to demonstrate again?" She asked rather cheerfully, as if she had not almost killed me, just to make a bloody point. Surrendering to this most frightful woman, I held up my hands and shook my head.

"Good." She said, she pulled out a chair and sat down by my bedside.

"Now it's your turn." She gazed straight into my eyes. I could see the tiny grey specks in her green irises, radiating from their black pupil hearts. "Who are you?" She asked.

Her question came so sudden that I did not know how to answer. My former, now very much deceased masters, had never bothered to ask anything, as long as I made them enough coin, they were happy to keep this nameless beast. In fact, I had been robed from the dignity of a name for so very long, and had no identity other then hog, or dog, or monster, that I could not even believe that another human being would be interested in my name.

Now this stranger who had saved my life was asking who I was and I could not even give her an honest answer in fear that it would put my life in danger.

"I am a soldier." I told her, struggling to invent a cover that seemed not too unbelievable.

"A soldier?" She arched her eyebrows.

"Why, you think I cannot fight because of this?" I held up my left hand, becoming too much self-conscious after noticing that she had been staring at my wretched arm, to not make a fuss about it.

"Oh no." She said, shaking her head. "If you can believe a woman can be an archer, of course I can believe you are a soldier."

I did not reply, but pressed my lips into a thin white line.

"How did you end up here?" She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. She had an amused look as if she was settling herself down for an entertaining tale.

"I was…I was trying to get home." This invention of lies did not come to me as naturally as it once did in the past. Lack of practice made for a poor performance. "I've been fighting in the south for a very long time. I was traveling with my two companions by carriage when we made the wrong turn and lost our way." A bitter taste filled my mouth when I recalled my two former masters, particularly when I had to associate the word "companions" with these two villains who had tormented for so long.

"When we entered an abandoned plague town by nightfall we were attacked by wolfs. They chased us till the cart slipped and flipped on its side. I was flung out and went over the cliff-side."

"Which one?"

"Which one what?" I asked with a pang of panic, not happy to be interrupted in my stream of thoughts. "I am not familiar with the name of the town."

"Which battle did you fight in? On which side?" She clarified.

"The battle at Bosworth." It was an unwise choice of course, but it was the first name that sprung up in my mind. "For the gracious king Henry." I hastened to add.

"Bosworth? The famous battle that has dethroned our late king Richard?" She looked much surprised. "That's a long way from here. You were traveling up north you say?"

"Uhm, yes, we were traveling to York." The peculiar way in which she reacted to my poorly fabricated lies was worrying me.

"You're from here?"

"That is correct."

"You certainly don't sound like a northerner."

"Well, neither do you." I snapped back, getting irritated.

"You're getting angry with me?" Her lips widened into a playful smile that only upset me even more.

"Is this some kind of interrogation?" I huffed. "Do you want to know if I am capable to repay you for your kindness, for saving my life? Is that what is troubling you?" I blurted out. It seemed only logical. Much to my own sorrow, I had learned that no kindness in this world came without a price. No doubt she was after a handful of coins or any other kind of advantage that she could gain from me.

"No, of course not, I would never ask for anything in return. A good deed is a blessing on its own. It's just – your story doesn't make sense." She stood up and went to a wooden chest that sat in the corner of the room.

"The morning after I found you, I went up the hill side and found the upturned wagon. I also found one of your friends. Or at least what was left of him. The bits the wolves had refused to eat." She took out items that appeared very familiar.

"Forgive me for scavenging. There is so very little what I can get nowadays in the surrounding villages with pestilence roaming these lands. It seemed a waste not to take what can still be used."

She held up a blackened kettle and several smaller pots that my previous masters had once used to cook their supper. "Cooking utensils are always welcome, so are tunics, plaids, good knives and swords." She showed me those too. They were all taken from the travel chests that I remembered were stored in the back of the cart.

"Tell you what, I also found this." She threw a rusty set of cuffs, chains, and a collar on the floor. The shameful trinity of my captivity.

"I went through his pockets as well." She added, and produced two leather poaches stained brown with blood that jingled heavy with coins when they landed on the floor boards. Blood money, earned with my suffering and debasement. "Your companion was quite rich, which seemed a bit unfair since I found you dressed in rags and in such horrible state. I mean, your wounds..." She came closer, her eyes studying the many angry red patches on my skin. "They are very peculiar. They're not cuts or fight wounds, the type of injuries that you would expect from fighting in battles…No…they look more like bitemarks." She gently ran her fingers over my bandages.

"And these." She pointed out the red ring of inflamed tissue around my neck that seemed to never heal. It was a cruel reminder of where the coarse collar used to scrape over my skin day and night. She took and turned over my hands to expose my wrists where similar sores were visible.

"You have a very poor taste in friends if you allow them to treat you like this." She said, almost knowingly.

My heart rate quickened, my throat narrowed till it was becoming hard to breathe. "What are you trying to prove?"

"That you are lying." She turned away and came back with a black iron fireplace poker in her hand. The very sight of it triggered a most disturbing memory. I was back in my first days of my incarceration. I was cowering on the floor, chained with my collar to a metal ring to the wall. Greybeard was waving an iron rod, threatening to give me a trashing if I didn't obey his orders. Just a few feet away stood my cage. Two dogs were chained up inside. Straining their bonds and baring their teeth, they were mad, vicious and angry.

"Get in there hog!" Greybeard lashed out, and brought the heavy rod on my back that was already covered by a patchwork of bleeding bruises. I whimpered and shrunk back, too terrified to move any closer to the vicious hounds.

"I said get in there! Or I shall beat that hideous hump into a sack of broken bones! Get inside!"

She swung down the poker and I immediately recoiled into a frightened, shivering ball, bracing myself for the pain to come. Instead, the heavy end came down on a lump of brown fur that was scuttling over the floor. It gave a brief rodent squeal when it was dispatched.

My response had startled her. "I was just trying to kill that rat." She skewered the flattened carcass and lifted it up to show it to me, but I could not bring myself to look at her, and cradled my head with my arms crossed over my chest.

"Rats bring the plague. I have to be careful to keep them out of the house." She tried to explain. Visibly alarmed by my distress, she threw the remains in the flames.

"I am sorry that I have frightened you." She said timidly. "Let me boil another potion to help you calm down your nerves."

 **IV**

I woke from a dreamless sleep in the middle of the night. Moonlight entered the narrow window and illuminated the small space. The sparse silver light was just enough to reveal that the bed opposite to mine was unoccupied and that the wooden cabin, except for my own occupancy, was empty.

She must have been gone for some time. The embers in the fireplace were dying and I inhaled a lung-full of cooling air.

"Do you believe you can trust her?'

A voice whispering in the dark, and the air in the room suddenly turned much colder.

"Who speaks there?" I draped the blankets over my shoulders, wrapping it around tightly. "Is that you, my young nephew?" I asked, hopeful that it would be him. "I have missed you. I feared you have returned to your eternal sleep."

A white ghostly figure, as tall as a grown man, stood in the corner of the room. I could not yet see his features for he was facing away towards the wall.

"You're not my nephew Richard." I muttered, realizing this, my heart filled with icy dread.

"Indeed, I am not your brother's son. I am your cousin Buckingham."

He turned to look at me with a gaze that was devoid of life itself. Blood stains were still visible around the collar of his yellow tunic. It was the same one, I recalled, that he wore on the day of his execution. Where the axe had struck his neck, a neat thin line continued to weep blood.

"Buckingham." I whispered, recalling him in my many night terrors in which I endlessly relived my last dreadful moments before the battle. A dry lump was stuck inside my throat. "Why do you appear now in my waking hours?"

"Because circumstances do no longer allow me to speak to you in your dreams. Really, why Edward's son has granted you these peaceful nights knowing what evil you have once done is beyond my comprehension." He lamented. "So, I decided to come to you when the veils of sleep are lifted. I do miss our conversations."

"Are you a ghost?"

"Did you not murder me? Order my execution?" He said in an icy voice.

I nodded guiltily, covering my mouth with my trembling fingers.

"Then what-else can I be, but a ghost? My flesh and bones have already turned to dust."

"Do you seek revenge on me?"

"I already am avenged, Richard. You died, do you not remember? You died rather wretchedly." There was finally a smile on his face, though it was faint, and seemingly devoid of real joy.

"But if that is not what you seek, what cause do you have to haunt me now?"

"Oh don't say I am haunting you, I am here to advice you." His words suddenly slipped into a more soothing tune. "I want to be a good counselor to you, my dear cousin. I believed I once was when I was still breathing air. Do you trust her, my lord? This stranger? This wolf-slayer? This most unnatural example of womanhood? Do you trust her with your own life?"

"You mean that scary Amazon woman? Why shouldn't I? She has done me no wrong."

"None so far, but she cunning. She did not believe any of the lies you've spun."

"Even a drunkard with no more brain than a stone could have seen through my shallow lies. It has nothing to do with her."

"Then it appears to me that my lord is much out of practice." He said with mockery in his voice. "Your tongue used to be so full of craft it could sway even the most wary Christians martyr to sit in a pit with ravenous lions. Where has all that cold callous brilliance gone?"

"I was still very much afflicted by fever. Besides, she gave me very little time to think." I said grudgingly, then continued in a less certain voice; "She has been nothing but kind to me. She saved my life and had cared for me while I was life threateningly ill. I don't think she wishes me any harm."

"Yes, she cared for you, so did Margaret. Who first held you prisoner, and then began to torture you."

"She does not hold me prisoner." I insisted.

"Are you certain?" A half-smile crossed his stone-like mask. "My lord should try the door."

Weary and still weakened by my illness, I stepped out of bed on shaking legs. I tried to open the door, but found that it was indeed locked.

"She barred it from the outside." My dead cousin watched with some amusement how I putt my shoulder to the panel and tried with all my strength to dislodge it. "There is no use. You cannot get out."

"There is more." He added, noticing my growing distress. "I saw the woman mounting her horse and riding away earlier this evening, taking the road south. There is a garrison town following that road, only half a night's ride away." Buckingham's ghost crept nearer, his voice now a hoarse whisper in my ear. "I think she is going to sell you out to the king's men."

"But…why? W-why would she do that?" I stuttered.

"She knew that you were kept prisoner. Perhaps she suspects that you are a criminal, wanted by the law. There might a reward on your head."

My stomach filled with stones and the dread turned into blind panic.

"When she comes back in the morning, she may already have pocketed her thirty pieces of Judas silver with the men sent out on their way for your arrest." He added.

"Oh w-what should I do Buckingham?" I clasped my hands over my head in despair. "Please, I beg you, kind cousin, help me!"

"Kill her." He said in one ice-cold breath. "My lord, when she comes back, feign to be asleep. When she herself goes to bed to slumber, wait till she is sleeping soundly, then smother her. Take the coins that she had stolen from you and ride her horse hard to flee north."

"Yes, yes." I nodded, so very grateful to Buckingham that he was still sharp as a blade and willing to part with good counsel, while my own wits were unraveling at such frightening speed. Clever, faithful Buckingham, on which I could always rely, oh how I had wronged him in the past. "I shall do exactly as you say." I assured him. I searched the tiny cabin, rummaged through Ophelia's possessions, and soon found a dagger, which I slipped under a belt that I had made in haste of a cord that I had fastened around my waist.

"Prepare for tomorrow. Pack enough food to last at least for several days. You need more weapons, and warm clothing to survive the nightly winter frost."

I looted Ophelia's larder and stuffed stale bread, dried meats, and cheese into a rucksack. I also retrieved a tunic and a cloak made of sheep wool from her wooden linen chest, and found a pair of good leather boots underneath her bed.

"Don't forget to take the coins with you." Buckingham reminded me after I had put on the all the extra clothing. I fished out the two bags of coins that she had taken from my villainous masters, and stuffed this too inside the rucksack.

A burst of galloping hooves disturbed the night's silence and startled my actions to a halt.

"Is-is that her?" I asked.

Buckingham put his finger on his lips and slowly, turned to the window to check. "Just a lone traveler." He informed me. "Passing by."

"What shall I do now?" My mind had turned into a nervous nest of scorpions. I was unable to stop myself from fidgeting with my fingers, and was compulsively scratching open old scars. What if she returns immediately with the soldiers? What if I fail to notice her return? What if she doesn't return? Oh what if, what if, what if -

"Just wait my lord." Buckingham said. "Wait and have patience."

The fire had by now completely died down and the frosty winter cold was seeping into the cabin. I went to bed fully dressed, holding the rucksack against my belly, careful to keep it out of sight under the double layers of bed coverings. I was determined to stay awake, but as the long hours dragged on, sleep stealthily crept back into to my mind. When the first light came from the east at dawn, I had surrendered myself reluctantly to a dreamless slumber.

 **V**

The next morning brought the loud calls of a most persistent cockerel. I thrashed out of bed, and found out that, much to my relief, her bed was still occupied. Almost soundlessly, I sneaked out of mine. She had turned her face away towards the wall. Locks of her dark hair and the tip of her pale upturned nose were just barely visible underneath a tangled bundle of blankets.

"Place your hand on her mouth and suffocate her." Buckingham whispered.

My hands trembled so much. It made me realize that I lacked the courage to follow my cousin's savage orders.

"You've killed before." He reminded me with a most accusing tone. By your own hands you have taken the lives of far nobler victims. There is even blood of your own blood on your hands. How come you've become so pathetically weak?"

"I can't! I just can't! I can't do it. Not like this!" I rambled.

"Then take the dagger, pierce her heart like you did with king Henry's heart. Let the bloody instrument guide your actions."

I took the dagger from my belt, and in my nervousness, I cut myself with the sharp end of the blade.

"Oh be silent coward conscience." I shut my eyes, and forced myself to regain my calm. The scorpions inside my head were now a crawling chaos of viciousness, stabbing each other with their venomous stings. If she stands in the way of my freedom and survival, I shall kill her. I shall kill her like I have killed all the others. I know no pity. I know no love. I know no fear. Let my heart turn to stone.

"Do it! Do it now, before she wakes!"

I raised the dagger with both hands and brought it down forcefully, stabbing into her warm living body right through the thin bed sheets.

My victim was feeble king Henry on the blood-drenched floor of his prison, blood erupting out of every orifice as my blade repeatedly punctured his guts, his lips finally silenced from all the vile curses he had spoken out against me.

It was lord Clifford, that loyal Lancastrian fighting dog who butchered my father and my younger brother Edmund, lying on the battlefield when I ran my blade across his neck, and exact my most satisfactory revenge.

It was gullible lord Hastings that unwise old fool, and stubborn supporter of my young nephew Edward's claim to the throne, dragged away from the council meeting to the executioner's block where I order the axe to fall upon his head.

I repeated this violent act incessantly right up until I ran out of breath. She did not cry out, nor did she struggle…and how strange it was that no blood came to bloom on the cover surface.

Alarmed, I upturned the sheets and discovered that her bed was unoccupied. The only victims of my malicious knife crime were a bundle of clothes and a ruined feather cushion.

Where had she gone?

I was sure that she had been here just a seconds ago. I had seen her with my very own eyes. Starting to doubt my sanity, I flung the bedding on the ground and even looked under her bed in cause she might have vanished underneath. I almost dropped the dagger in fright when the door of the cabin swung against the wall with a loud bang that resonated through my bones. The wind had blown it wide open. It brought in the sounds of human activity, coming from outside in the courtyard.

Like someone who had just discovered that he was wandering inside a dream, I ventured out. The sun was shining against a clear blue sky. Thaw dripped down from the rooftop and the barren branches. Somewhere, well hidden in the tree tops, a lone bird was singing. I inhaled a deep breath of cool winter air and stepped clumsily through the slush of softened snow.

I found Ophelia behind the dilapidated wooden shed. She was busy splitting firewood with an axe.

"You're up?" She said when she saw me standing there. "You look better today." She glanced at my outfit shortly before bringing down the blade again on a stubborn block of wood. "Did you retrieve those from the linen chest?"

Not knowing how to react to her, I sheepishly nodded my head.

"Glad they fit." Her green eyes fixed on the blade and the blood dripping from the cut on my hand.

"You are bleeding."

I turned my hand upwards and stared at the angry slash that went right through the lines of my palm. It had left bloody smear on the dagger's handle.

Oh how cruel was this sudden transition from single-minded violence to shameful and pitiful doubt. In my mind's eye, I saw the saintly king Henry, who pardoned me for my vile crime with the last breath parting from his lips. I saw Clifford, begging me for a merciful death, but his mournful pleas being ignored by my vindictive little heart. I saw kind and dutiful Hastings, who did what he believed was right, and by trusting me, paid for his kindness with the heavy price of own head.

To my horror, a flood of crimson started to gush out of the thin red line. It poured in a warm viscous wave over my trembling hands, washing both bright red, and dripped in continues streams from my fingertips onto mushy snow. I swallowed a cry and staggered back in distress. There was so much blood, so much of it sticking to my flesh like a second layer of skin, that I was sure that my hands would never be clean again.

"Give me that." Ophelia said, noticing the bewildered look on my face. "Give me the knife." She repeated softly, but urgently.

She was not angry, nor did she appear fearful or arduous or begrudging toward me. Her appearance was one of complete calm and kindness. It calmed me down, and when I looked again at my hands, the horrific flood was gone. Only the red angry line of my self-inflicted cut remained. I passed the dagger over to her, and bowed my head low while questioning my sanity and reasoning. She had been kind to me. She was not my tormentor, nor my enemy. Why did I listen to Buckingham? Why did I wish to do her harm?

Why had I never been able to see right from wrong?

She took me inside and wrapped my cut in bandages, which she soaked in a swig of strong spirit. To clean the wound, she said. I was sure that she had noticed the many holes that I had made in her blanket, bed linens and mattress, but she refrained from making any comments about it.

Instead she said. "What is your name?"

"M-my name?"

She wanted to know my name. Even after all the horrible things I had intended to do to her, she still wanted to know my name.

"You told me what you are, but not who you are. So what is your name?" She asked most patiently.

I could lie to her again, but no longer did I wish to.

"Richard." I said, and by confiding in her, a dark and heavy veil was lifted from my heart.

"My name is Richard."

TBC


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 **I**

 **Brugge, 2001**

The air inside the art gallery the air was stale and had the sweet sickly smell of old things. The summer heat had made visiting the museum complex with its glass ceilings and hothouse-like constructions as comfortable as going inside a sauna with your clothes on. Groups of sweaty tourists were chain-ganged pass the many artworks in a long tired line. Many of them were wondering why the paint was not yet dripping from the canvases.

The three fallen angels, dressed in conventional 21th century outfits, have confiscated one of the rare benches, and were sitting right in front of a triptych, a 17th century art work consisting of three separate painted panels that depicted a scene in the afterlife. With all the demons, fire and brimstones, and many naked tormented souls crawling all over the place, it was not difficult to guess what it must represent according to the long dead painter.

"So this is hell then." Raguel said, licking the soft serve from his ice cream cone. It was forbidden to consume anything in the art gallery, but being a fallen angel had its merits. The problem was easily remedied with a cheap optical trick. According to the security officer who watched the three men from a corner nearby, the ex angel of vengeance was just licking air, which still struck the human as mightily odd, but was not offensive enough to get a paying visitor removed from the premise.

"I say, that is rather depressing." Raguel concluded with a yawn.

Zambriem squinted his eyes and leaned forward. His skin condition had improved a little. He looked more like a man in his mid thirties suffering of a severe case of eczema instead of a leprosy victim now, but he was still scaring away the little ones. "What is that demon doing over there?" He pointed out the little figure in the left corner of the canvas.

"Ah! That one is eating the sinners. He is consuming them and passing them out in a continues circle." Lucifer explained. He was dressed in fashionable black and wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses that made him look, at least in his own mind, quite intelligent and sophisticated.

"If you expect me to do that, I can tell you right now, I pass." Raguel commented. Appalled by the idea, he had suddenly lost his appetite and dumped the rest of his cold treat in a bin nearby.

"There is nothing unnatural about defecation." Lucifer sighed. "Every living creature does it."

"Are you kidding me? It is _very_ unnatural if you have to spend eternity eating your own shi-"

"Oh why are we even here." Zambriem interrupted Raguel. "I miss master Crock.' He lamented. "This era does not suit me very well. There are so many strange noises and funny smells in the air. Can we not go back to the 15th century when it was all peaceful and quiet?"

"We are here because Lucifer asked me to take you to the very pinnacle of human civilization to see the artworks concerning the concept of hell." Raguel explained with a tired expression on his face while he turned to look at his brother. "Honestly, I do worry about you sometimes. We must have explained it to you a hundred times by now."

Zambriem shook his head stubbornly. "No that is not what I meant. I mean to what purpose are we here?"

"Oh I see, I agree with that." Raguel nodded, turning to Lucifer. "Indeed, don't we have better things to do? I thought we needed to go after the Avernus."

"We are here because I need inspiration." Lucifer put down his pencil that he had used to scribble down notes on a piece of paper. How could these two expect him just design a whole realm from scratch? Sometimes he really wished that his current companions had a more developed intellectual and artistic side. At least Clemens was rather good at sculpting, and Raziel, although boring and uptight as hell, fancied himself a bit of a philosopher. Raguel only had a talent for killing things and god knows what Zambriem was thinking half of the time and why.

"Creating a well-functioning version of hell requires immaculate planning." He tried to explain. "You can't just make it all up on the way. That would result in utter chaos."

"Really? I don't think our father had that much of a plan when he created the universe, and that turned out to be just working fine. Don't you think you're a bit over-complicating this?" Raguel smirked resting his hands against the back of his head.

"Surely, we need to do a little better than our father did?" Lucifer replied, trying to keep his calm.

"Oh no…You're not going down that old route again, are you?" Zambriem asked worriedly. "Seriously, your pride will be the end of us."

Lucifer rolled his eyes and just managed to suppress a sigh of pure agitation. No matter what he said, there was no way of pleasing these two. "I just meant we need to come up with something truly great that would impress him. We can't just muddle up the afterlife for his pet species and present to him a version of hell that is riddled with defects. It has to be worthy of the old man if we want him to take us back."

"That sounds a little bit better." Zambriem muttered, his eyes glazing over as he drifting back into his own jumbled thoughts.

Lucifer removed his glasses and dug his fingernails into his nosebridge, feeling every inch the tormented artist. "Anyway, Raguel, are you sure we are at the right place and the right time here?"

They had been visiting hundreds of museums and had been looking into the collections of thousands upon thousands of artworks that were available for viewing, but none had really given him the much craved fire of inspiration that he had hoped for.

"Yep. Why do you ask?"

"It's just I am not feeling much inspired. Is there not a later time point that we may visit to see what civilization has come up with concerning this subject?"

"Oh no. Absolutely not." Raguel commented, sounding pretty much convinced. "I can assure you, this is the finest moment in human civilization. It is only going downhill from 2001 onwards, from 9th of November to be precise. A couple of decades from now, and there will be elected mad megalomaniacs, pushing in red buttons and ruining it for everyone. The whole thing is going to go up in radiation and smoke. You want to see the best that humankind was ever able to produce? This is it. It is the only moment in history in which most that is worth seeing is more or less still intact and not burnt or blasted into smithereens."

Raguel's face suddenly acquired a more puzzled look. "Lucifer?"

"Hmm, yes." Lucifer mumbled back while he was chewing on the back end of the pencil in contemplation.

"Did you ever, since you took this form, have a good look in the mirror at yourself?"

"Not really." Lucifer replied. He found it a rather strange question. It was just a human vessel, like any other he had before. "What's your point?"

"Is it really just me, or is there something very wrong with how you look?"

"What do you mean?" Lucifer had just finished his sentence when the strong feeling of unsettlement that had occurred to him before returned with a vengeance. He once again could recall having this exact same experience in the larder of the monastery the day his consciousness was restored, and he remembered how Zambriem had reacted when he freed him from his tree prison. He could also, with some panic, recall what happened exactly after these brief moments of clarity.

With trembling fingers, he struggled to pick up the pencil and guide it to paper.

He had to remember it this time. Whatever he was going to find out in the following brief moments, he must not let it slip away again. With a hand that suddenly seemed to have a will of its own, he started to write down the few words that came up in his confusing swirling mind.

"It is the light isn't it?" Raguel muttered. His tongue seemed to speak words that were not his own, and he wouldn't be able to recall any of this in a second or so, but for now, he was pointing out the truth to Lucifer. "That part of you that was once shining, it is no longer there." He whispered.

As sudden as the revelation had exposed itself, as abruptly did it end. Raguel puzzled frown softened and his eyes widened till he was gazing at Lucifer with the same confused look that Zambriem had once showed him. "Did…did I just say anything to you? I can't really remember."

Like Raguel, Lucifer had much forgotten about the conversation from just moments before, but unlike his brother, he had something to help him jog his memory. In his hands, he held a piece of paper with his own handwriting scribbled feverishly across the lines. Puzzled, he brought it closer and studied it.

 _Remember!_ It read.

 _Something lost_

 _Something shining_

"I don't see you Morningstar." Zambriem had once said to him, and then there was his scar, the one that ran all the way from his right shoulder to the tip of his right hand.

Lucifer mouth dropped open when he finally recalled what had been hidden from his memories for so long. "Oh hell." He muttered, gazing at the piece of paper with a grim expression on his face. "Oh bloody hell."

He did not need to decipher the final scribbled word on the paper to know exactly what was written on it.

 _Morningstar_

 **II**

"Are you awake Richard?"

It was still dark. The cabin was filled with the scent of wood smoke of the cooking fire that had extinguished hours earlier. Ophelia was standing in front of my bed. She was fully dressed, and carried a bag that hung low near her hip.

"Are you going out into the woods again?" I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"You want to come along?"

I got dressed and followed her out into the courtyard where Ophelia saddled up her horse and climbed on.

"Where are we going?" I noted that the moon shone full and bright through the crowns of the surrounding trees.

"You will see when we get there." Was her only answer.

I was not accustomed to be the second rider on the back. Noticing that I was searching for something to hold on after I had mounted, she took my good right hand and placed it firmly around her waist.

"This is highly inappropriate." I told her, remembering the strict court etiquettes.

She returned me a smile. "Just hold on. I don't want you to fall off and break your neck."

We rode over the same narrow upwards winding path and passed the exact spot where Greybeard had met his untimely demise. I did not have a natural fear of heights, but as the sharp drop of the cliff began to reveal itself, I could not help myself from tightening my grip around Ophelia's waist.

After we reached the summit, she guided the horse to take a route that diverted from the main path and led into the forest. Trunks and undergrowth grew thicker as we ventured deeper, till there was barely open ground left for the horse to tread on. I looked up at the sky, and noticed that the large moon and the stars were barely visible through the dense crisscrossing tangles of skeletal branches.

The journey continued till the forest growth once again became sparser, and we encountered a small open space. A beam of moonlight spread a silver disk over the forest floor.

We dismounted. Ophelia took out her dagger and knelt down to remove some of the top layer of soil. She soon revealed a circle of growth, saplings with unusual red foliage, half hidden between last year's dry crumble of fallen leaves.

"What are these?" I asked, as I watched her dig out one of the plants from the still half-frozen ground.

"Mandrake roots. I came here often with my father to collect them. You are supposed to harvest these at winter nights when the moon is full. That's when the plant roots are at their strongest, and their medical properties are at their most useful."

I did not immediate understood what she meant, till she had freed enough soil around the little plant and asked me to help her pull it loose. With both of us grabbing on to the stem, it still took a lot of effort to get the roots released from the soil. When it finally let go, an extensive web came with it, with bits of earth still clinging on.

"What do you use this for?" I had no experience with medicinal plants, other than those who had been given to me in one form or another by the court healers.

"You boil it down together with wolfs claw, nettle, worms tongue and a handful of cloves to make it into a thick potion. You could add a table spoon of honey to taste if you like. It is quite bitter. My father used it to treat plaque victims."

"You're telling me that you use this to make a cure for pestilence?" I concluded, furrowing my brows.

"You don't believe me?" She asked, wiping her hands clean over the folds of her dress.

I had never heard of the existence of a cure for the disease, not even from the royal physicians, who were considered the most esteemed and most knowledgeable men of the realm. "I don't think there is anything that works against it. The only way to deal with is to make sure you never catch it."

"Well, this works, because this is no ordinary mandrake." She made a cut in the skin of the root with her dagger and showed it to me.

For a short moment, I distrusted if what I saw was not a distortion of color by the moonlight. The incision was weeping a deep dark liquid. "This looks like blood."

"That's because it is blood. The roots of the plants run very deep. They can reach layers that have not seen daylight for decades."

"You're really telling me this?" I asked, raising my brows. "There is blood, in the soil?" My face must have shown my utter disbelief as plainly as an open book to her, for she responded most defensively.

"Yes, there is blood in this soil, for this the exact place, where many years ago, an angel fell to earth."

I wondered if she was truly mad enough to believe in such tripe or that she was just pulling my leg. It worried me greatly that her expression remained one of grim seriousness.

"You are skeptical?"

"Forgive me, digging for a wonder plant that would cure the world of the plague aside, I indeed find it very hard to believe that this crimson sap that comes out of it, is in fact the sacred blood spilled from a wounded angel." I replied with a voice dripped with sarcasm.

"It is the truth." She said it in a manner that was so full of conviction that I had no residual doubt that she was meaning every word of it. "My father told me this, and I believe him. He would never lie to me."

"What kind of angel was he then talking about?" I smirked, crossing my arms over my chest after having decided to play along with her outrageous story. "Did he mean the fallen one? The devil?" The comment was meant to be light-hearted, but just mentioning the devil caused such sudden unease in my heart that it dampened any impulse I had to tease her any further.

"No." She replied in a soft serious voice. "This angel was kind. He did not fall because of his arrogance. He fell because he was merciful."

"That does not make any sense." I scoffed.

"You don't believe in angels?"

"No I don't." I replied with great stubbornness.

"What do you believe in?"

"In ghosts." I replied, thinking of my dead nephews, and of Buckingham goading me to commit murder. "I believe in the ugliness of human nature that can only be subdued by a merciless rule and by severe punishment." I added, thinking of my own life and what came after. "I believe in witchcraft, and in the devil." I concluded with a slight tremble in my voice, as Margaret's warning of how the devil was after my soul, haunted my mind. Oh for God's sake, who was I to taunt Ophelia, questioning her beliefs and her sanity? My own guilt-ridden mind was a hornet's nest of phobias and hallucinations, and was sicker than hers would ever be.

"So you see the dark, but cannot imagine that there is also light?" There was disappointment in her voice. "I pity you Richard. I truly do. You sound like a man without hope."

" _You_ are my hope." I blurted out, before she turned away from me, before I could stop myself, before even my thoughts could process with I had just so very clumsily said.

She turned and gazed at me with large questioning eyes. Terrified, but realizing that I could not take back what was already spoken, I rambled on.

"Before I met you, my world was a most horrible and frightful place. My whole existence was truly miserable. I thought that my life was over, but then I met you. I am fully aware that I am only still alive because of you. So I wish I could…" I paused, and swallowed the words that I wanted to really say. "I could reward you in any way for your kindness."

"There is really no need -"

"What I mean to say is..." I interrupted her most impatiently. "I am grateful. Although sometimes it doesn't seem so, I am truly grateful to you. I am sorry if I have ever treated you unkindly."

The way she reacted to my clumsy apology, the curling of her lips, the faint blush rushing over her cheeks, it made my damned spirit light up like a star in the darkest of nights.

"Here, take this." she handed me the dagger. It was the same one that I took to wreck her bedding that night in her cabin.

"Help me dig out more of these roots before dawn.' She requested. "We need plenty more for the potion."

TBC


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 **I**

 **Northamptonshire, 1451**

The crater was at least thirty meters wide. Considering how small the object was that had created it in the first place, it was remarkably respectable in size. Rows of uprooted, flattened trees were arranged in perfect circles around the impact point, like one would paint the rays of the sun radiating from its golden center. The three fallen angels were at the bottom of the crater, standing amid the still smoldering rubble. They had searched over every inch of these fractured, blackened grounds, but had failed to retrieve the one tiny object that they had been so desperately looking for. The conclusion was painfully clear. Lucifer's Morningstar was no longer here.

"Blasted!" Lucifer cried out. "Blasted, blasted, blasted, blasted!" There was a great urgency in his voice that came close to despair.

"Are you sure we have not made a mistake?" Zambriem opted carefully. He was sensibly sensing that his brother was in a most irritated mood, but was not sensible enough to keep his mouth shut. "Is this the right crater?" He added.

"How many fresh craters do you think there are at this exact time in this region?" Lucifer snapped back. "The Morningstar fell down from heaven the same day I arrived here on earth. The human chronicles state very clearly that on this night, a comet was seen, crossing the sky over England. It was heading to the west, where a great blast was later witnessed. The locals say that it was as if the woods in the western lands near Northhampshire were set on fire. So the impact must be here, right on this exact location."

"According to my calculations, the impact must have happened only three to four hours ago, yet the Morningstar is nowhere to be found." Raguel commented.

"Someone must have already taken it." Lucifer replied, thinking it through with a growing sense of dread.

"There is definitely something fishy going on." Raguel concurred. "Pockets of time have been closed down around this time point. We cannot go anywhere nearer to the time of impact than we currently are."

"The hosts must have sealed it. They must have done this to protect the Morningstar." Lucifer concluded. The comprehension of how he was bested by his heavenly brothers did not sit well with him. "If this is true, they must also know who has taken it."

"I can ask around for information, call in favors of some dear old friends." Raguel opted.

Lucifer nodded. "But be careful. Don't let them know that you are with me if you don't trust them. We don't want the heavenly brigade to descend on our backsides right now to overcomplicate things."

Raguel grinned. His eyes were flashing. "I shall be as mindful as a fox in the farmyard on his way to visit a henhouse."

 **II**

The snow had melted and the sun was beginning to warm up and mellow the lengthening days when Ophelia told me she was going to visit a nearby monastery. She invited me to come along. I was not eager to meet other people, but she insisted that I could be of some help to her. I only gave in, because I dreaded the thought of being left by myself, and feared what it would do to my sanity if she was no longer there to silence my demons.

So one early morning in late April, we loaded the horse with everything that she had hoarded up during the long winter months. We took our journey on foot, guiding the fully packed animal down the long serpentine road.

For the first time since Ophelia had rescued me from the wolves, I was venturing away from the cabin during daytime. Spring had truly conquered the winter gloom and I was delighted by the dazzling spectacle of yellow and purple blooms, just peeking through the fresh spring grass that covered the forest floor. There was a strong sense of a new beginning in the air that did not fail to affect me. If dead winter soil could bring forth such joyful splendor, could not then the miserable death of a Godless man yield virtuous life thereafter, if it was nurtured by the warmth of a kind and noble light? With Ophelia by my side, I certainly cherished such hopes.

By the time we reached the valley below, the open spaces with flowerbeds became much sparser, and although the rays of the midday sun still shimmered through the canopy of leaves above us, it had much decreased in strength. We were venturing deeper into the forest.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" I asked. One would expect a monastery to be surrounded by open fields, and to be close to small villages, or at least connected to major road. It was not supposed to be lying in the middle of the woods, and to be almost inaccessible except for a more or less invisible track. It was then that my eyes caught sight of a wooden structure, hidden behind a chaotic growth of trees. It was no more than a platform build into the crown of an ancient-looking oak.

"We are midway." Ophelia blew on two fingers, producing a short high-pitched whistle. A figure dressed in a hooded habit appeared on the platform above us. She waved at him.

"Don't sound the alarm!" She yelled up at the man in the tree tops. "It's me Ophelia."

He seemed to recognize her. "Who is this man?" He asked, pointing down at me.

"A good friend. I brought him along to visit the monastery. I assure you, he can be trusted."

This seemed to be a satisfying answer. The man returned a slight nod, before disappearing again behind the foliage.

"Who was that man?" I asked, confused by our strange encounter.

"He is a monk from the hidden monastery. He is hiding up there because he has guard duties."

"Why is he guarding the road? Are there bands of robbers roaming these lands?"

"You could call them that I guess." She replied with a bitter smile. "It's for our lord's army. He needs to warn the others when he sees them approach."

"But why, they are monks, not thieves. There is no need to fear the authority of their lord."

Ophelia gazed at me with real puzzlement. "They are Catholics." She stated, as if that would explain everything.

"Yes, and so is the rest of England including the king." I reminded her.

"Is this a joke Richard? Are you pretending to be a time-traveler again?" Ophelia was now staring at me as if I had just grown an extra head.

"I am not joking, why would their lord or the king want to harm these God-fearing men?"

"The king put out a decree to dissolute the monasteries. Most of England's abbeys have been plundered. Congregations that have existed for over centuries were forcefully disassembled."

"That…simply cannot be true." I muttered, taking it all in with the incredulity of someone who had been just informed that the natural order of things had been replaced by utter chaos _._ "That is blasphemy!" I called out. "Has the world been turned on its head? What does the pope say about this?"

"We are no longer under the pope's rule. Our king is now head of the church. The English church. A new religion for a new age. Apparently, it is no longer enough for tyrants to rule over the hearts of their subjects. They need to rule over their souls as well."

"But, the authorities of the church, the nobility, how could anyone allow this to happen?"

"It happened as most things happen, by force and under the threat of a blade at one's throat." She paused for a moment to take in my visibly shock. "How could you not know?" Ophelia said. "They have been persecuting the Catholic monks ever since Thomas Cromwell sent out his first commissioners to do his dirty work for his royal master."

Her expression became solemn, and anger rang through her voice. "I don't mind that they smashed the statues of the saints or destroyed the stained glass windows, or even that they set fire to the libraries to wipe out centuries of irreplaceable knowledge. What I find most horrible of all is that they ripped out the heart of countless of communities. It's the common people who are the most affected by the king's actions. They have no longer a place to turn to when they are in need. The poor are left to fend for themselves. The sick are literally dying in the streets."

The forest suddenly stopped to exist, revealing a large area of low growth that reached up to a circular brick wall in the distance that fenced off a complex of buildings. The highest of these was a tower-like structure, narrow of shape, and hardly 2 stories tall. Except for that, nothing surpassed the height of the surrounding trees. We entered through the main gate and were greeted by a gathering of monks, headed by a bearded man dressed in a long white habit.

"Friar Norbert." Ophelia said while she embraced him. "I am happy to see that you are well."

"My dear Ophelia." The friar responded warmly to her greetings. "We have missed you." He told her most affectionately, before fixed his eyes on me. "I see you brought a friend."

That I felt ill at ease would be an understatement. My previous experiences since I returned to this strange life had left me rightfully distrustful of my fellow human beings, all except for Ophelia. Shielding behind her, I instinctively pulled back a little when friar Norbert walked up to greet me, and was glad that he kept it formal and short.

"How did you fare?" Ophelia asked the friar.

"At long last my lady, the long dark winter has finally passed." The friar replied. "Thankful for your last year's donations, we had enough at our disposal to keep everyone fed during the harshest of months."

He led us across the courtyard to the largest building in the compound. Inside was a great hall turned into a sick ward. Rows of wooden coffin-like boxes with straw bedding lined the walls. Most, if not all of them were occupied by the sufferers of all kind of illnesses, men and women of all ages, children, and even babes with their mothers. Some of them were emaciated, gaunt faces struck by starvation, with large hollow empty eyes, others were coughing continuously, soiling their bed sheets with red dots of blood. A half-conscious man trashed violently, while the friars pinned him down as they poured vinegar over a raw red stump of his amputated arm.

"The sick keep on coming." The friar lamented. "There is no end to it. There are simply not enough other places left for them to go."

"We are here to help." Ophelia reassured him. "We brought food and medicine. Mostly, potions to treat gangrene, convulsion, and different types of fever."

"God will reward you my child! I will ask brother Remus to unpack your horse and store these items at once. We are in such short supply. Nothing is yet growing in the gardens, and even if we were in the midst of summer, we probably could not grow enough to elevate all of this suffering."

"I am very aware of your predicaments. I promise I shall do what I can to aid you in your good work." Ophelia turned and leaned closer to the friar, so the others may not catch this part of their conversation. "Were there any new cases?"

"Yes I am afraid there were. A young girl who had lost her family during last year's famine, and one of our own brothers who had tried to take care of her."

She nodded with a grim expression on her face. "They are quarantined?"

"Yes, we followed your instructions to the letter."

"Could you take me to see them?"

He let us to the entrance of the narrow tower and took us up the winding staircase. A sickly stench came at us when he opened the doorway that led to a narrow chamber. Inside, there was barely enough room for two cots. One was occupied by a young girl, the other by an old man. Both had drenched their nightgowns and bedsheets in sweat and were barely conscious. My stomach tightened when my worried eyes spotted the telltale signs of bubonic plaque, the large bulbous growths that bloomed like grotesque dark mushrooms on the necks and under the armpits of the victims, the blackened fingers, and the strong stench of decay that attracted a legion of flies. The old man was in the worst state, with his jaw and tongue so grotesquely swollen that he could no longer close his mouth, and he was drooling incessantly.

Ophelia was about to enter this room of death when I grabbed her by her arm. "Don't go near them." I urged.

"Richard, what are you doing? You know I came here to treat the sick."

"That may be but these two are beyond your help. Look at them. They are dying. If you go near you'll risk getting infected."

"Not if I take the right precautions." She pulled away and took out a piece of cloth, which she folded several times before using it to cover her mouth and nose. "I assure you, I know what I am doing." She tied the ends behind her head, and went through her hip bag to take out a phial with a honey colored liquid. It was the potion that she had made from our winter harvest of mandrake roots.

"That little girl and that old man, they have entered the final stage of the disease. If I don't treat them now they are going to die within days."

"You don't even know these wretched souls Ophelia. Why risk your own life to save two strangers."

She looked at me with reproachful eyes. "I did not know you when I first found you in the woods. Yet I did what was right. I saved your life."

She turned to the friar. "Could you please bring me a burning candle and a thin knife with a sharp tip? I need to lance the buboes before cleaning the wounds with the potion." The man nodded solemnly and ventured downstairs. Ophelia then turned back to me and said in a resolute voice: "If you value your own life so much Richard, just go, but don't prevent me from helping those in need."

She stepped inside the chamber and closed the door behind her. I stood outside in the corridor, not knowing what to do, till my growing resentment against her irrational decision got the better of me and made me leave.

 **II**

I returned to the ward where, after I watched friar Norbert rush upstairs with the requested tools, I waited for Ophelia to return. The vast hollow space was constantly echoing with the noises of human suffering, but I soon grew immune to it, being too occupied by my own grievances with Ophelia.

As the shadows cast from the line of pillars in the adjacent corridor grew longer and thinner with every passing hour, so was I becoming increasingly frustrated with her. When she still had not returned by early evening, I contemplated to go up into the tower again to intervene with her ridiculous quest for self-destruction. In my view, her saintliness was not only incomprehensible, but also completely absurd. It was the naïve conviction of a fool who had missed the true meaning of this most cruel world, that bad things happened without moral cause and that no good deed was ever rightfully rewarded. The only cautionary tale that was worth telling to our children in this miserable existence was that of the battle for survival. It dazzled my mind that from the lowliest worm struggling to escape it's dire fate from a fisherman's hook to the youngest of infants crying for their mother's warmth could understand this very simple logic, but Ophelia would or could not grasp it.

Sitting in a dark corner, as far away from the humanity as possible, I leaned back my head against a pillar and observed in silence the activities that took place around me. The friars were patrolling the ward, busy carrying out the thankless tasks of caring for the sick. Some of them were cleaning out the rotting maggot-infested wounds of amputees and injured soldiers. Others offered food to the frail, feeding them one half-spoon full at the time with saint-like patience. An elderly monk held a dying man's hand, who was caught in his final death throw signaled by the emptying of the bowels and bladder. How shameful and undignified were these final moments of death, which returned us all to helpless infancy, with soiled trousers and childish cries. The bleakness and horror of it all only further darkened my mood.

It was then that I finally noticed that friar Norbert had re-entered the ward. He was searching through the sea of faces, before he found his objective and walked over to a woman who was sitting at the bedside of a man who could have been her husband in age. His complexion was corpse-like and his wide-eyed gaze showed an absence of mind that indicated that he was ready to leave this world.

The friar put a hand on the woman's shoulder, and she gazed up at him, her most expression dazed by sorrow and exhaustion. The friar pushed something in the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around it, before he spoke to her for a little while. Then the friar nodded in my direction, and they both looked up at me briefly.

I turned around to face the windows. The woman reminded me too much of Elizabeth Woodville, my brother Edward's hapless queen, to be any comfort to my soul. Just seeing her brought back memories of the dark days just before my brother's death. Similar to this soon to be widow, Elizabeth had been completely broken by grief, but I had absolutely no pity for her. She and her family were a bunch of parasitic leaches that had gorged themselves on the good fortunes of our house, reaping all the benefits from our greatest struggles, while George and me had been increasingly pushed aside by our much besotted king brother. As for love, I was still doubtful if lovely Elizabeth would have fallen for Edward if he had not been the monarch of the English realm, or had not looked the way his dashing royal highness did in his younger years. I may be called a cynic, but it was certainly difficult for me to picture that graceful Elizabeth would have lost her heart to my brother, if his appearance had been more similar to mine.

I was distracted from my resentful thought when the woman walked over and tried to catch my eyes.

"My dear sir." She started hesitantly. "I pray you could spare me a moment."

Up close, her features looked so very much like Elizabeth's, the same innocent doe-like eyes and warm kindly smile that had captured my brother's heart, that my own skipped a beat. She held a small purse in her hands. Her nervous fingers fiddled with the rope. "I would like to tell you that we thank you wholeheartedly for your charity."

"You have no need to do so." I answered, baffled by her statement. "I have not been charitable to you in any way."

"Forgive me, but Friar Norbert informed me that you have donated a large sum to the monastery that was to be distributed amongst the poor." She responded with a timid little smile.

"I am now very sure that you are mistaken, for I have truly not done such a thing." I replied rather bluntly, ignoring that her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"Well, my kind sir, in my heart I know that my gratitude to you is justified, even if you would not accept it." There was an alarming shiver in her voice. "You see, without these coins I would not be able to take care of my children, not without my poor husband…" She could not continue, and covered her mouth as tears started to gather at the rims of her eyes.

"Come come, my lady. Do not weep." I told her. I wished my heart could be hardened to stone, but her frailty was most unsettling and I could no longer utter another harsh word. Instead I stretched out my hand and patted on her shoulder to console her.

Elizabeth and her clan had caused me much aggravation, but perhaps…perhaps like this widow, Elizabeth's devotion to my brother Edward had been genuine. Well, at least more so than all the artificial tears that I had shed at the funeral on dead Edward's behalf. I took this would-be widow's hand, held it tight, and waited patiently for her to compose herself, which took an achingly long time. After she finally went back to her dying husband's side, I caught friar Norbert's glance for a fleeting moment, and he greeted me with a most sympathetic smile. I just returned it with a short courteous nod.

Not long after, Ophelia came down from the room in the tower. I intercepted her just when she rushed by, carrying a washbowl filled with blood and puss soiled linen wrappings.

"It was you, wasn't?" I told her with great resentment. "You gave away the coins that you took from Audemar and Greybeard." It did not require much for me to put one and one together.

She gazed back at me, defiance shining in her green eyes.

"You also told the friar that I have donated it to the monastery."

Yes I did." She admitted.

"Why? Why did you do such a thing?" I asked, disgusted.

"Because it did came from you." She replied, returning me a meaningful look. "It was yours to give. I simply helped you to make the right decision what to do with it. Is that such a bad thing?"

"I don't mind that you are giving it all away to these peasants. Just why do you need to tell them?"

The surprise on her face after she realized what bothered me the most of her actions, quickly turned to cynical amusement. "Is it truly so horrible to receive the gratitude of another human being for once?" She replied, rolling her eyes at me as she walked away.

"Wait!" If she believed that this conversation was over, she was surely mistaken. "Where are you going?"

"I need to fetch cool water from the well. The little girl has a fever. I need to bring down her temperature." She halted her steps and waited in the doorway to the outside courtyard, her chin held up high as she gazed back at me. "If you have changed your mind and want to help, you are more then welcome to do so."

I bit on my lower lip, with my emotions caught in turmoil, I wondered if she had just tricked me again to force me to see the world through her charitable eyes. If she had, was it indeed, truly so horrible? Reconnecting with humanity may be the first step to rehabilitation, but did this sinner actually wish to atone, or did he merely hope to be pardoned for his heinous crimes to escape the devil? I had to confess that I could not answer these questions truthfully, not even to myself.

"Are you coming?" She repeated.

After another moment of hesitation, I finally made up my mind and followed her.

TBC


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 **I**

 **Place and time unknown**

For as far as Raguel could be considered a reliable judge of such matters, the garden was quite beautiful. Long rows of scented cypresses lined the long lazy lanes that snaked their way back to the pink baroque palace in the distance. There was a thick aroma of blooming flowers and sun-kissed citrus fruits in the air, and from every corner of the garden came the sound of singing birds and buzzing insects. If wasn't so bloody hot, it could have been rather pleasant.

"So this is where you keep yourself busy these days." Raguel said, trying to strike up the conversation in a casual tone. He knew that there was no need to rush things. Time did not exist in this paradise. "How long have you been hiding here from the watchful eyes of the hosts?"

"I have not been in hiding." The other man replied. He was dressed in a long white habit. His eyes were half concealed underneath a heavy hood. In his hand, he held a long wooden staff. He did not seemed to be very pleased to see Raguel again.

"This looks like a hiding place to me." Raguel commented, gazing around. "You're wrapped yourself in a comfortable little bubble outside of time and space. It made it very hard for me to find you. I had to pull a lot of strings and ask for a lot of favors."

"You were not supposed to find me. Nobody was."

Raguel's lips curled into a most deviant smile. "Now that's no way to treat on old friend."

"You know what happened." Although his host's voice remained calm, it was clear to Raguel that he was resentful. "You know that I was imprisoned here by the hosts for failing to carry out my duty. So stop taunting me."

"Oh yes." Raquel replied with a roguish grin. "I remember now." He plucked a stalk of grass from the nearby lawn and chewed at the tip. "Still, not a bad place for a prison. Could be worse."

"How could it ever be worse?" The other man replied. His low voice was now poorly concealing his growing annoyance.

"Oh I don't now." Raguel shrugged. "You could be tossed into the chaoplasm? Or maybe father could have turned you into a tree?"

There was short moment of silence before the other man replied in a slightly less antagonized manner. "You have spoken to the Fallen One?"

"And to Zambriem. By the way, he sends his love. Zambriem that is, not Lucifer. You have to forgive him, but he never did like you that much."

"You do know that they are looking for him?" The other man said in a more pressing voice.

Raguel just shrugged back in response. "Of course I know. That's why I came here to see you."

"I am not going to protect him." The other man replied most resentfully. "If it wasn't for Lucifer, I wouldn't even be here, so far away from the silver city, all but forsaken by our lord."

"Yes, well, you have to see it from his point of view. The guy was imprisoned in the chaoplasm. You know horrible that place is. You can't blame him for trying to escape."

"He was imprisoned in there because he betrayed our father! He rose up against him and had tricked others into doing the same."

"I wasn't tricked." Raguel hissed, walking up to the other man.

"All I am saying is that the crime suited the punishment."

"All right, how about your crime? What did you do to end up here, looking like this?"

The other man bowed his head to shield his eyes.

"I failed my duty. I failed our father." He muttered under his hood.

"Yes you failed him, but you didn't do it on purpose, did you? You just didn't know how it would turn out, but you did your best, and how did the old man and his gang reward you? Tell me then, does _your_ crime suit _your_ punishment?"

"Enough." The other man interrupted him, but Raguel knew when it was time to push through and go for the kill.

"How is Clemens these days? Do you know where he is?" There was cruel glint in Raguel's eyes when he reminded his host of the other fallen angel. "No doubt his punishment is at least as severe as yours. I cannot imagine that they are more lenient with him than they are with you. After all, you were an innocent bystander. It wasn't you who opened the box and let Lucifer out. It was Clemens who took the Avernus. It was him who injured you and took away your -"

"I said enough!" The hooded figure punched the straight end of his wooden staff deep into the ground. The earth immediately started to shake so violently in response that a rain of cones descended from the cypress trees. Even the walls of the pink palace in the distance started to groan. Raguel's eyes drew wide when he saw ground open up beneath his feet.

"All right! All right!" He raised up his hands in surrender. "I won't mention his name again. I swear!"

The violent earthquake subsided and the cracks over the ground stopped spreading, allowing Raguel to regain his footing.

"Why did you come here?" The other man asked. His voice was sounded dangerous, and threatening, but Raguel just smiled back at him in utter defiance. "I am the ex angel of vengeance. I know when and where to show up when I am most needed."

"You came here to ask me to help you and Lucifer? Aren't you afraid I will inform the others?"

"No." Raguel shook his head. "Not a chance in heaven. Not while you're still so very angry. My dear brother, even though you are kept separated from our universe and are confined to your own bubble prison, I can still feel your resentment against those who have wronged you all the way from the other side. I know your heart. You yearn _so much_ for retribution."

"All I want is justice." The other man whispered.

"I can help. If you would be so kind to help me first."

"What do you want know?"

"First things first. We are looking, among other things, for Lucifer's Morningstar, do you know where it is?"

The corners of the other man's lips slowly curled into a knowing smile.

 **II**

Ophelia put her whole soul into combating the disease. She looked after her two patients tirelessly, tending to their every need while being oblivious to her own. I stayed by their side, and together we nursed the old man and the child through the worst of their suffering. On the sixth night after our arrival, the old man suddenly woke from his fevered delirium. He sat upright and asked fearfully for his mother, as if he had completely forgotten that a full life had already passed. We managed to calm him down, telling him not to worry, that his mother had gone out to cut the fields, and will soon return home to him. He slipped back into unconsciousness soon after, and died in his sleep during the early hours of the following morning.

"Don't tell the little girl." Ophelia whispered. When she gently shut the old friar's eyes, I noticed that hers were shining with tears. "I don't want her to know what happened to him. She must have hope."

We continued to look after our last patient, and barely left the tower in the long days that followed. It was agonizing to see the little girl suffer so much at such a tender age, but it was equally agonizing to watch Ophelia suffer along with her. As the girl kept slipping in and out of consciousness, so did Ophelia's hope and despair, wane and wax like the different phases of the moon.

After another two weeks the pestilence finally subsided. The malignant blooms deflated and lost their dark coloration till they became flat reddish spots, before disappearing altogether. On one bright spring morning, our young patient finally opened her eyes to meet Ophelia, who greeted her with a most radiant smile.

"Welcome back." She whispered and placed a gentle kiss on the child's damp forehead.

I had never met anyone who could remain so passionate and true to such a selfless cause. Saving this little girl's life had meant everything to Ophelia, and now that she had finally achieved this seemingly impossible task, the joy that was visible on her face could touch even the most hardened of souls.

But then, heaven help the fool who had already lost his heart to this earthly angel of mercy.

"Oh may heaven reward you both for restoring her." Friar Norbert exclaimed after he heard of the good news. He took us in a joyful embrace, which delighted Ophelia but brought me only embarrassment. I had done nothing to deserve his gratitude. It was Ophelia's unfaultable conviction for doing what was right that had saved the child's life, whereas my selfishness would have let die.

However, the simple man lacked the wit to see the obvious, and heralded us both as saintly heroes to everyone in the monastery to hear. Every one of his flattering words that painted colors to my imagined virtues rang false in my ears.

"As her miraculous recovery coincides with the Mayday celebrations, we will hold tonight's feast in your honor to thank you both for your great kindness." The friar proclaimed. Of course this only further worsened my guilt.

When the festivities started later that day I was quick to withdraw from human company, finding the faces of the friars and the poor who came to express their misplaced gratitude to me far more impossible to bear than would have been their scorn or hatred.

At least the latter were well known territories, whereas their kindness was too much terra incognita and worked havoc on my nerves.

I found my way to the wine table and started drinking heavily in the hope that the evening would pass sooner once my faculties were numbed. I was about to empty my second cup towards drunken bliss when Ophelia found me sulking behind the stack of wine barrels.

"There you are." She said. "Friar Norbert was asking about you. Why won't you come and join us?"

"Alas my good lady, I am no good company." I replied as bluntly as I could, taking another good swig to make this ridiculous world a little bit more bearable. "Don't want to spoil the mood for everyone else."

"Oh come on, you must have celebrations in the north, or where ever you came from." She teased in good humor. "What do you normally do?"

"Normally?" I snorted. "Normally I would try to avoid these frivolities on the pain of death." The wine was stronger than I expected it to be. The intoxication that coursed through my blood at a most delicious speed brought boldness to my tongue and weakened my reserve. "Honestly I had never understood what the whole point was of these senseless gatherings." I complained, steadying myself with my hand resting on one of the barrels.

"Well." She said, still in good humor, she crossed her arms over her bosom. "If you truly don't understand, let me explain it to you. You see those people over there who are dancing around that bon fire? They are happy. They are celebrating that they have yet survived another dreadful winter. That their loved ones are healthy again, and that the warmth and the light have finally returned after long months of absence. They have come together to celebrate life."

"It must be so liberating to desire no more but such simple pursuits." I muttered, taking another swig from the wine.

"You find their pursuit of happiness ridiculous?"

"Oh no, in contrast, I am envious. Look at those simple fools, you have saved but one life and they respond with such…extreme positivity. It is as if you have cured them from all illnesses and solved all of their problems. If only I could shed my cynicism and think like them for the rest of my days, why I would be constantly ecstatic!"

Her good mood soured in response to my sarcasm. "You don't understand what she means to them, do you?"

"She is just one little girl. The elixir will not always work. It did not work with the old friar. Millions have dead from the plague before, and millions more will undoubtedly follow." I remarked, pointing out the obvious flaws in their thinking.

She placed her hands on her hips. I noticed that she often did this when she was rejecting any of my arguments. She was literally standing her ground. "Yes she is but one child. She is also more than that. She is hope. They celebrate the survival of one child because for them it is a light in the darkness of these horrible times. Life is not bearable without it."

"Finally you say something I can agree on. Life is unbearable indeed."

She sighed deeply. "What may I ask, do you pursue, Richard of Bosworth?"

"To be truthful, I…I don't know." I paused and gazed in the distance. "I used to know. I mean, my father, he used to know. He always knew exactly what he wanted."

The English throne had been my father's dream. It was that great ambition of my beloved lord, which had become my curse. In the end it had destroyed our noble house. I, with my own incessant scheming, had brought down the great house of York, but I was still lucid enough to not tell her that, despite the wine loosening my tongue.

"When I was a child, I was often bullied by my cousins, because…well I guess you can think of the reasons why." I said with a bitter grin. "One day, after an exceptional cruel prank, I ran home, crying like some dim-witted gosling. My father found out, and instead of providing consolation like my loving mother did, he took me aside and scolded me for being a weakling. He said, the only reason why I was bullied, was not because I looked different, but because I had allowed them to torment me. If I had confronted my bullies with full conviction and strength of mind and body, they would have not dared to ridicule me. To my father, supremacy was the only answer, and he urged me to take it into heart that I should always strive to better myself and my family's fortunes. The higher our positions, the smaller the chance that our enemies would be able to harm us. Of course you could not always enforce a man's love and loyalty with dominance, but you could make him _fear_ you. If one day, you find they do not fear you enough, then with that same authority, they are easily dispatched."

I paused, realizing that I had said too much, but now that my heart had opened up to Ophelia, it was difficult to shut it again. "After my father died, his dreams became that of mine and my brothers. For a long time I believed in my father's words. I thought that the higher I would climb, the less I would make myself vulnerable to others. I guess at the end, I had climbed so high and had reached such a dazzling height, that the only fate left to me was to fall." I paused, dark thought clouding my mind.

"So here I am, back at the bottom where I once started, like some damned Icarus with burnt wings who had soared too close to the blasted sun." I concluded with a bitter grin, my heart filling up with self-loathing. "Only I wish, like Icarus, I could have been granted the decency of a permanent death. Why I still walk this earth and am forced to wallow in its misery is beyond my comprehension. For all considered purposes, surely life should have been done with me by now." I raised my cup in a mock salute and was about to empty it in one go, when she took stopped me.

"Don't say that. It's not true." She told me strictly, looking deep into my eyes. "I think you have more then enough for now." She put the cup out of my reach, and gazed over her shoulder at the merry crowd behind us. "Dance with me." She said, turning around.

"I _don't_ dance." Surely she could see that I was already swaying on my feet. What was in this most potent wine? It worked faster and more efficiently than a blow to the head by a blacksmith's maul.

"Oh sure you do." She took my hand and pulled me behind.

"I am serious, I don't know how." I was being truthful. I never had the determination nor the patience to learn what most of my kin considered to be an essential part of court etiquette. What the use? No woman in her right mind would ever accept an invitation to dance from this repellant crook-back.

But Ophelia was very determined. "Believe me, no one really knows." She gestured at the dancing pairs who were twirling joyfully in a wide circle. "They are just shuffling around, pretending that they do. Come Richard on, before this night is over, I want you to have a bit of fun."

She dragged me into the center of the circle and started to dance. Her feet were floating on invisible clouds as she alternated her steps on the rhythm of the tambourine, while her hands swayed lively from her side, following the melody of the lutes. As always, her enthusiasm and sheer joy for the moment were contagious, and as the rhythm of the musical instruments aligned with the beating of my heart, I lost my reservations, and followed her wild dance steps till I was as synchronized with her movements as her own shadow. It was in a sequence of claps and turns that she became overconfidence and lost her footing.

"Careful now." I muttered, catching her in my arms.

"Oh I am so sorry!" She laughed while trying to regain her balance. "I am such an ass! I almost muddled it up and dragged you down with me."

She wrapped her hand around my neck for support. Then she looked at me. In her eyes I saw the reflection of a million stars.

"I suppose, we both are who our fathers have made us." She gently touched my cheeks with her fingertips. "It doesn't mean we cannot change. You don't have to be the man your father thought you needed to be. Life is about change, and you Richard of Bosworth, are very much alive."

She shut her eyes and gently pressed her lips onto mine. For a brief moment, the memory of what happened after I kissed Isabel Neville came back to haunt me, and made my body stiffen in response. But then the tenderness of her touch slowly dissolved all of that, and chased away the darkness of that thought. I leaned into her, responding with a burning desire, a deep seated yearning to be loved, that I had not known still existed in me.

Was this what greybeards called divine love? This shameless need, this ravenous hunger for another soul, this strange addiction to her presence without which I could now scarcely breathe, let alone imagine go on living?

She pulled away, parting the brief bond that had ignited this fierce longing in my heart.

When she opened her eyes again to look at me, there was no dreaded disappointment of a hard-faced rejection. Instead, her lips broadened into the most dazzling of smiles, and with it came a promise of a love that was finally returned.

TBC


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 **I**

 **Fotheringhay Castle, 1452**

She had been pregnant before, 11 times to be precise. So she saw herself as an experienced mother, one that was so familiar with the inconveniences of childbearing that she was by now above all that fear that had once rattled her younger self when she was carrying her husband's first children.

When her physician took a urine sample to be mixed with red wine to test for pregnancy, she did not have to wait for him to return with the good news. She already knew for certain that she was again with child. That warm, familiar feeling had returned and had heightened her mother instincts, making her kinder and less patient with others than she normally was.

She had followed the strict procedures like she always had, withdrawing from her family's company when she felt the first kicks of the infant inside her belly. With her tiny entourage of servants and midwives, she locked herself inside her bedchamber, which had been refurbished with soft tapestries and calming images to ensure her health. The windows were shut to prevent malignant miasmas from entering her sanctuary. They would not be opened again till she had fully recovered from giving birth. She was accustomed to be locked in like this, to spend her waking hours in her small claustrophobic world that was only illuminated by the flickering lights of candles. It wasn't any different from the previous 11 times. As the days slowly passed into weeks, then into months, and her belly continued to grow reassuringly, she thought that she had no reason to worry.

But then, 4 months after first noticing her pregnancy, things started to go horrible wrong.

She woke after a long restless night in which she dreamt of giving birth, not to a human child, but to a wolf cub, one with razor teeth and a horrible nasty bite. Drenched in cold sweat, she struggled out of bed in need of using the urine pot. It was then that she noticed that her feet were red and swollen, and hurt horribly when she tried to stand. The family's physician was summoned. He placed amulets and sacred gemstones on her bedside and on her chest, and wrapped prayer rolls around her belly to help with the pain, but it all failed to work. Then he gave her a bitter herbal remedy to drink, and when that still failed to help her, he ordered her servants to wash her body with it. She only got sicker, and vomited up blood, while violent headaches started to fully debilitated her. In the end, the clueless healer tried to bleed his patient in a last effort to reduce the swelling. First he used leeches, but when even that failed, he opened the veins in her arms. It was extremely painful, and the blood-letting only weakened her even more while her fever continued to climb. By the time that her physician scuttled away to inform her husband that he could do no more to save her, she had already slipped into unconsciousness.

It was therefore strange, that she found herself waking up with bright daylight shining in her eyes. A slender figure with wild grey locks and a fierce look on his face was standing at her bedside.

"Have I died? Am I in heaven?" She muttered, fluttering her eyelids against the blinding light.

"No Cecily Neville." The stranger replied. Somehow, it did not come as much as a shock to her that he knew her name. "You are still breathing, but you are close. You're very close to dying."

"I don't want to die." She said truthfully and fearfully.

"Don't be afraid. I won't let you." His voice was so gentle, so reassuring. She felt safe in his presence, although she did wonder…

"Who are you? Where is master Conrad, my family physician?"

"You don't need him. Believe me, he is completely rubbish. If bleeding someone dry would cure illnesses than there wouldn't be so many dead people on the battlefield. You're lucky that I am here Cecily. Do as I say, and I promise, will save your life."

"Have you opened a window?" She asked, finally noticing where all the daylight had come from.

A thin smile spread over his lips. "A bit of fresh air will do you good, besides I am waiting for a parcel to arrive."

She looked out of the window. It was early morning, and the sky was purple and pink. A pale and ghostly moon was still visible in a field of fading stars. It was nothing extra-ordinary, but it was still beautiful, and she suddenly realized how much she had missed this view.

It was then that she caught sight of a large glittering star falling across the sky. It fell down at a slight angle towards the neighboring woodlands where it disappeared behind the dark branches of the treetops.

After this, things started to become a little strange.

The fallen star suddenly reappeared from behind the trees. Instead of falling, it was now moving in a straight line, heading right for the castle tower. The light became brighter and brighter, till it landed on her window sill. She blinked and squinted her eyes, and saw that it was some kind of ugly bird, a large black-feathered creature that had carried the star in its beak.

The slender stranger walked over to the creature and opened his hand. "There you are, it is about time."

The monster bird dropped the star in the palm of his hand. When he returned, she finally saw that it was not a star, but a glass phial filled with a clear liquid. It shone with a beautiful white light that illuminated the dark and depressing chamber. For a moment, she no longer felt the pain in her swollen limbs and belly, or noticed the fear rattling inside her heart. She was at peace.

"A star in a bottle." The man said, and took off the top from the phial. Gently, he brought the glass rim to her pale cracked lips.

Although she did not know him, Cecily suddenly felt overwhelmed with a great love for this strange man, who had taken away her suffering and had turned it into bliss. He was like mercy from heaven, and she trusted him completely. In 3 sips, she emptied the entire bottle.

"Will I now live?" She asked. She felt the liquid starting to settle inside her. It was like a warm and comforting glow.

"Yes, yes you will." He whispered.

"And what of my child?"

"He will live as well."

A small smile of relief curled her lips. The warmth had risen to her head, and she felt faint and dizzy, but still very comfortable.

"You are tired. You should sleep."

She shook her head. "I am too afraid to shut my eyes." She gazed up and reached for his hand, her fingers gently touching his. "Will you be gone when I wake?"

"When you wake up, all of this will be like dream, as it should be."

"But if you are gone, what will happen to me? What if I don't wake up again?"

He smiled, and lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her fingers. "Go to sleep Cecily, and I promise you that you will wake to see many more days."

"Could you…at least stay till I have fallen asleep?"

He nodded and held on to her hand. His hand was thin, and boney, with long slender fingers. She thought he had the most beautiful hands. Everything about him was wonderful. His eyes, his voice, there was such kindness in his voice, such _mercy_.

Lady York closed her eyes, and while she kept holding on to the hand of the stranger, she drifted into a deep peaceful slumber. Instead of dreaming of giving birth to fearsome wolf cubs, she dreamt of a night sky filled with stars and a tall stranger who walked amongst them.

 **II**

Two days after the Mayday celebrations, an outbreak of the sweating sickness brought in new suffers to the monastery. Ophelia tried to help where ever she could. Her potions proved effective, but ran out quicker than she could brew anew in the abbey's kitchen. The friars also lacked most of the ingredients that were required for its potency. Remembering that she had kept a large stock back in the cabin, I volunteered to go and retrieve them for her.

"Take my horse." She told me. "And please be careful and be swift in your return." I promised that I would, and kissed her when we parted. The taste of her lips made my heart long to return by her side even more. Riding fast, I reached the cabin by midday. There I cleared out the larder of most of its useful content, putting them in bulging sacks that became quite heavy with its precious content, and loaded these on the horse. I left while the sun was still high in the air, confident that, despite traveling now on foot, I would be able to reach the abbey before nightfall. I was around the midpoint of my journey in the hidden part of the forest, when I heard the voices of men coming in my direction.

Unsure of their intent, I decided to hide, pulling the mare with me behind a thick undergrowth of bushes, forcing my hand on her muzzle to keep her silent and still. A brief moment afterwards, an assembly of three armed men in full armor passed by on horseback.

One of the soldiers was carrying a banner. The sigil on the flag depicted the Lancastrian red rose, with a smaller heart consiting of the York white bloom. I recalled Ophelia telling me that Henry Tudor had married Edward's young daughter Elizabeth to reconcile the warring fractions. It was a smart political move, symbolized by this well-crafted public sign. It told the clever lie that the Plantagenet bloodline still ruled over the kingdom, although in truth, it was now further removed from the original stem than ever before.

I for one should appreciate the ingenuity of this, but what I saw truly was the woeful wreckage of all what was left of my father's noble house. The sorry sight of it cut right into my heart.

I was distracted from my embittered thoughts when I witnessed one of the men dragging a long rope behind him. It was bound to a prisoner. With his wrists secured behind his back, and the noose fastened around his neck, he was dragged behind the horses, and was struggling to stay on his feet. The prisoner himself was dressed in a brown tunic and habit. I realized that he must be one of the monks from the monastery. It was at that moment that the mare made a loud whinnying sound that startled the other horses, causing the man at the front to signal the others to halt their track. Fearing that they would find me, I tried to calm the bloody animal down, but she came even more restless and started whinnying even louder.

"Who is there?" The commander of the small group barked. "Come out! We've heard you!"

I carefully considered my options. I could try to flee on horseback, but Ophelia's mare was old, perhaps only one unfortunate stumble away from becoming lame. It won't be able to outrun the younger feistier animals of the soldiers. In the end, I would be caught, and the subsequent punishments that these rogues would undoubtedly bestow on me would be most severe. There was only solution for my current predicament. I raised my hands up in surrender and announced my presence in the hope that they would be lenient.

"Why are you hiding from us?" The commander demanded to know.

"I beg your pardon my lord." I answered in a shivering voice while I kept my hands in the air. "I did not know that you are men from the army of his royal highness. I hid from you because I was wary of robbers. There was no ill intend, I swear my lord!"

I did not need to feign much of my distress, for the two other soldiers, still sitting in their saddles, had aimed their lances down at my throat.

"Who are you?"

"Just a traveling merchant. I was on my way with my goods to the nearest town."

"Look at this, a crook back." The commander commented, as his made his horse circle around, eying me from head to toes. "Lame as well. By God, heaven did forget to give you any of its blessings, you poor wretch!"

A round of laughter came from his men, but it was nothing that I was not used to. Their mockery actually calmed me a little. Men in power seldom killed the butt of their jokes.

"You are a merchant you say?"

"Yes my good gracious lord." I lowered my eyes to the ground, reminding myself that back in the good old days when I still in power, how easy it was to be provoked into violence by the insolence of those who I considered lower in rank. It was best to act as meek and humble as possible in the presence of these cut-throat men.

"Search his luggage." He ordered.

One of his men dismounted and carried out his instructions. He found the bags of dry herbs and the collection of phials containing the ready-made potions and showed it to his commander.

"What is this? What are you exactly selling here?" The commander asked.

"Oh just potions. Medical herbs. Remedies for common infirmities." It was not difficult for me to lie, when my life was in danger.

"To whom?"

"To whoever has to coin to pay for them, my lord."

"That is an awful lot that you are carrying with you."

"I travel around, my lord. I visit towns and villages, following a long route depending on the seasons. What I carry with me is all that I own." I added, hoping that it was sufficient to persuade him that I was not a threat, but the man in charge did not seem to be entirely convinced.

"Raise your eyes and look at his man." He commanded, pointing out the prisoner who they had dragged forward to stand before me.

I gazed up and saw the man's face. It was the friar with watchtower duties, who I had greeted only this morning when I was on my way to the cabin. The soldiers had been very hard on him. There was blood seeping out of a damp patch of crimson on the side of his scalp. His lower lip was split and his right eyelid was red, bruised and swollen shut.

I lowered my eyes and shook my head, pretending that I did not know him. What would be the use to acknowledge him and to condemn us both?

"Are you sure?" He asked again, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes my lord, I have never seen this man before in my entire life."

"And you." The commander forced the prisoner to raise his chin with the sharp end of his blade aimed at his throat. "Do you know this crook back?"

The unfortunate man studied my features. I did not dare to look back at him and kept my head down.

"Raise your head! Let him see your eyes."

Reluctantly, I did what I was told. The friar's one remaining blood-shot eye focused on me before it darted twice to the left upper corner, as if signaling a hidden message.

The commander had failed to notice this. "Do you know him?" He asked, pressing the blade more firmly against the man's throat.

"I do not know him." The prisoner answered, and with that, he had saved me from a similar horrible fate. "I swear to God I do not." He added in a muted whisper.

For a single heart beat, I thought that the commander was not going to believe him, but then he sheathed his sword and gestured to the others to let me go.

"We are on the orders of our lord Northumberland and his royal majesty the king to dissolve the last resistance against the dissolution decree." He said to me. "There were rumors that singular pockets of catholic congregation were still active in this area. If you encounter such unlawful activities during your travels, let it immediately be known to the authorities, or you will be punished for conspiring with the enemies of the realm. Is that clear?"

"Yes, yes my lord, I will my lord, I will." I backed away with a series of humble bows and was about to take the mare's reins when he told me to halt.

"Leave your horse. Our unit is in need of pack animals. You can take your merchandise with you on foot if you must. We have no use for your worthless rubbish."

He tossed the bags over to me, letting them roll over the forest ground. I thanked the inconsiderate prick, showing all the servitude that I could possibly feign, and kneeled down to recover the bags. Several of the phials were shattered and an acid smelling liquid was dripping from the bottom of the sacks. I took what I could carry, but pretended to struggle with the load to give the impression that I still cared for my goods. I even exaggerated my limp to make them think that I would not be traveling fast.

"What are we going to do with this monk sir? He is not giving us anything." One of the soldiers asked his commander.

"He knows where the others of his congregation are hiding. I am sure of it." He replied. "If he doesn't want to lead us to them, it's no use dragging him around." He gazed around. His eyes fixed on a sturdy looking oak. "String him up. We will see how much it takes to get him talking."

The poor wretch was taken by his elbows and was dragged to a nearby tree. There they swung the rope that was attached to his noose over a thick lower branch. Just before they pulled him up, the monk gazed at me with a haunted look in his eyes. His lips moved silently to pass on a message with great urgency. I knew exactly what he wanted to tell me, but I was too much of a coward to let him know that I understood. The commander and his men hoisted him by his neck from the forest floor, and soon his feet were kicking in the air, performing a most macabre dance.

I had seen enough and turned away from the awful sight. As the soldiers kept themselves busy torturing and interrogating the poor man, strangling him before dropping him again from considerable height and breaking every bone in his body, I ran.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me.

As soon as I was out of their sight, I dropped the bags and headed in the direction of the guard tower.

 **III**

I had to warn the others.

I had to warn Ophelia.

The best option I had, as signaled by the monk, was to reach the guard tower before the soldiers found out about its existence and sound the alarm to allow the friars time to evacuate the monastery. Reaching the exact place where I remembered the tower should be, it took me a few frantic seconds to find it hidden behind the green canopy. It took me another few precious seconds to discover the rope ladder that provided access to the platform. I climbed to the very top, where I found a large rusted church bell attached to a wheel, hanging heavy from a wooden structure. A short chain was attached to a lever, which would spin the wheel and sound the bell.

I suddenly realized that sounding alarm would also attract the unwanted attention of the soldiers. The terrified look in the friar's eyes when the brutes lynched him was still burnt in the back of my mind.

I hesitated. My own spinelessness was begging me to be for God's sake sensible and to not bring myself into such danger. But then I thought of Ophelia, and of what these men had just done to the defenseless friar. I doubted no more. With renewed determination, I yanked hard on the chain, sending the wheel in a mad spin. The chime that came from the rusty bell was surprisingly boisterous and carried for miles over the valley, scaring flocks of nesting birds into flight. With a pounding heart, I kept ringing the warning bell as long as I dared to make it unmistakably clear to the others that the monastery was in danger. Then I went back to the rope ladder to make my way down. I was nearly half way when I was startled by the sound of hooves thundering over the forest floor, followed by a cry from one of the Tudor soldiers. They had spotted me.

I just caught sight of them when one of the men pulled his bowstring and released an arrow that flew close to my left eye, almost brushing the side of my head. Before he could take a second aim at me, I let go of the ladder and allowed myself to drop down to the forest below. I had dangerously underestimated the distance, and landed poorly, twisting my ankle in an agonizing way.

Aware that the men would soon come after me, I gambled that they would not want to abandon their precious horses and chose a path through thorny bushes, vines, and thick undergrowth, in the hope these obstacles would slow down their pursuit. I scrambled forward like a hunted prey, hardly knowing which way I was going, only that I was fleeing deeper into the darkness of the forest. My heart rattled in my chest as the fast paced sequence of hoof beats behind me slowed down considerably, yet still kept gaining on me in distance.

A sudden sharp pang of pain when an arrow piercing my left leg sent me tumbling forward into a tangle of ferns. A second arrow was fired. I recoiled as the barbed tip scraped over the back of my hand, just when I raised it up to shield off my face.

"Stop running! Or the next shot will go right you through your heart." The commander warned.

Panting like a wounded animal, I stopped running, and waited helplessly for the riders to come for me.

"Why did you sound that bell? Who were you warning?" The commander yelled while his men aimed their weapons down at me.

Realizing that nothing would now do except for telling the truth, I still decided to keep my silence as long as I was able to. The commander made an angry gesture at one of the soldiers, who dismounted and hit me hard on the side of my head. The viciousness of the blows made my vision blur.

"Tell me where they are hiding." The commanded asked again, impatient now, he unsheathed his own sword.

I am not a brave man. Although I had died once before and had whined like an ungrateful child about my resurrection ever since my return, at this moment, when the knife was almost at my throat and death was but one final breath away, I quickly realized that I actually did not want to die. Even worse, when the commander plunged his sword into my already injured leg and sent me howling in agony, I also realized that soon, I would be willing to tell them everything. I would do anything to stop them from tormenting me, even if it was only to delay the inevitable. However, the longer I could delay that horrible moment, the more time Ophelia had to get to safety. I forced myself to keep that in mind when they strung a noose around my neck and prepared to hoist my shivering miserable frame up a tree. I tried to remember Ophelia's face, recall the way she had smiled at me this morning just before I left, when the rope was beginning to narrow around my throat. I tried to hold on to that last memory, how the light of the morning sun brought out the little black specks in her green eyes, when my neck was starting to feel the pull of my weight.

My air was cut off. I was left choking and clawed helplessly at the biting rope. My vision was already starting to blur when I caught sight of a lone figure walking towards us, stepping through the cover of dense ferns as calmly as a maiden taking a leisurely stroll in a rose garden. My heart froze. The woman looked very much like Margaret. Her face was a death mask of solemnity. Her wind swept crow's nest of grey hair framed her features like a funeral shroud, and her torn red dress clung to the branches as she kept her steady pace towards us.

I uttered a muffled cry, convinced that, either affected by my fear of death or the lack of oxygen, my mind had abandoned all reason and had finally surrendered me to complete madness. But, like my eyes were fixed on Margaret's ghostly appearance, so did the look on the faces of my tormentors acknowledge her impossible presence.

"Halt!" The commander warned her. "Approach no further! Who are you? What are you doing here?"

But Margaret ignored him and kept coming closer, her deadened eyes set only on me.

"Where have you been Richard Plantagenet?" She asked calmly, her voice was chilling, as if the words were spoken from beyond the grave. "Have you met him? Have you met the devil?"

The soldiers who had hoisted me up the tree let go of the rope and to reach for their weapons. I dropped two meters down to the ground, and immediately tore the noose from my neck, sucking air through my narrowed windpipe to fill my oxygen starved lungs.

"Stay where you are!" The commander warned her again. He was visibly unsettled by her presence and on instinct, began defending himself by pointing his sword at her face.

Margaret slowly turned to him. The lack of fear in her response further deepened his unease.

"You want to stand in my way?" She said. The corners of her mouth turned downward in extreme displeasure. The look she gave these men could turn a grown man's heart into stone.

"Don't come any closer or we will dispatch you!" The commander warned a final time.

Convinced that she was the vision of my imminent demise like Richmond had been at Bosworth, I crawled away from her as far away as I possibly could. Margaret looked at the two other soldiers who had come forward with their swords raised, positioning themselves between their prisoner and the mad vengeful witch. Her eyes narrowed when she caught her own distorted reflection in their blades.

"You gang of toothless pups, falling all over yourself to please your far-away master by trying to frighten me with our hollow threats. Go on and dispatch yourselves!" She spat out, her fierce hatred fuelling the curse. "And do it quickly, for my heart holds little patience for your minor villainy."

The air was suddenly weighted down by an invisible mountain of stones. My limbs became heavy, as if gravity had been amplified to a thousand fold, preventing me to flee the scene. Paralyzed, I watched in horror how the soldiers turned the tip of their blades on themselves. Controlled by Margaret's cruel will, they were about to commit their own murder by their own unwilling hands. With motions that were forced and slow, they plunged their sharpened steel into their throat, heart, and belly, before twisting the blades. When Margaret finally released them from her deadly craft after they had parted with their final breath, they sank to the ground like lifeless bags of oozing flesh.

Stepping over the bloodied, still twitching corpses, she turned her attention back to me. Her spell finally broken, all the horror I had just witnessed came out of me in one mad terrified cry. I frantically scrambled backwards till I bumped into a pair of leather boots.

Someone was standing behind me.

Margaret immediately halted her pace. Her eyes lifted from me to the stranger, and suddenly, her death mask transformed into an expression of shock and awe for the one who had appeared behind me.

"My gracious benefactor." She said. She knelt down and bowed to the stranger. "I have not expected you to come so soon."

For a moment, I could but only hear the drumming of my heart, so fast and wildly it went that I was afraid it would soon burst out of my chest. When I finally dared to turn around to look at who it exactly was she was yielding to, my eyes couldn't simply believe it, and my mind was failing in comprehension.

"Ophelia." As I spoke her name in a tired, broken whisper, she brought down the back of her sword and sent me into darkness.

TBC


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

 **I**

Have you ever been betrayed by someone you loved, Richard Plantagenet?

I am sure I have not.

But then, I am also almost certain that I have never truly loved anyone before. Not in my previous life. Not like this. Not like I have now.

That was why it hurt so much.

I was married once, but to speak hollow vows in front of the altar in the presence of a bumbling priest, and to share a bed with a woman who despises you, does not automatically equal love.

By the time I ordered my men to take her life, my wife had hated me with a passion.

Anne Neville was her name.

Sad, doe-eyed Anne.

She was Warwick's only surviving daughter, widow of a husband who was murdered by my own hands. Much like her sister, she had been a willowy and graceful creature, perhaps not a perfect beauty as her older sibling, but to me, heavenly nonetheless. When she was at her most distressed, I tried to win her with smooth, comforting words. Faking tears of remorse, I had literally prostrated myself at her feet. To my own bafflement, I was successful.

Perhaps, she was desperate. Perhaps she did not see any other way but to marry me to protect herself from her family's enemies at court. Maybe she felt abandoned, and did not want to be alone. Whatever her motives were to accept me, it could not have been love.

I told myself that I did not care. I certainly had good reasons of my own to put my own name under the highly profitable marital contract. Yet…

Yet I had tried to be gentle with her at our wedding night. It was the very first night that we were to spend alone together, and I was hopeful that perhaps, despite all that had happened, she still was willing to learn to love me as a wife would naturally love her husband.

Sadly, one look at my disrobed body and my hidden disfigurements, and she had cast her eyes away.

If she had not done that, if she had not rejected me with one single glance, it might have been possible for me to love her back. Instead, from that moment onwards, I was no longer gentle nor kind to her, but I turned our marriage into a living hell.

"Richard? Richard? It's me, Anne, your poor wretched wife."

I opened my eyes at the pace of a crawling snail, dreading what would come when I allowed the world to reclaim me again. I was lying in a small narrow boat, drifting in the middle of a wide river. My hands were tied behind my back. My feet were bound together at the ankles. The pool of dirty water that sloshed around my ankles in the bottom of the boat had soaked deep into my clothes, and I was shivered uncontrollably of the cold.

Lifting my head up, I saw Margaret, sitting quietly in middle of the vessel, facing me. She was running her dagger underneath her nails, drawing blood with the sharp tip with a far-way look in her eyes. Behind her, I just could make out the contours of a woman's back, clad in a dark dress and robe. With long determined strokes, she was paddling our boat downstream. The blades of the oars broke the water surface almost soundlessly. The water surrounding us was as grey as the sky above and as smooth as a mirror, making it hard for me to distinguish where the heavens ended and where the river began.

I did not need to see her face to realize that our boatman was Ophelia.

As I slowly began to recall what had happened, the memory of her betrayal stung my heart with a thousand rusted nails.

"Why are you so upset?" Anne's voice was hoarse as if it was mere second ago that she had felt her killer's hands tightening around her throat. She was sitting opposite to me at the back end of the boat. Her ghostly pale skin was in stark contrast to the fierce red of her royal burial dress. I shook my head violently, hoping to get rid of her. My mind must be faltering. I am seeing the ghosts of my past again, taunting me in broad daylight.

"How can you think that you were betrayed by your love? You don't even know the true meaning of it." Her eyes were filled with loathing as if death had only preserved and ripened her anger rather than put it to an end.

"It is true." I told her. "When you were still alive, I did not know love, but only because you knew none for me." I added reproachfully.

Anne's eyes flared up. She leaned forward, and brought her face so close to mine that I could feel her cold breath on my cheek.

"I have tried to love you!" She trembled with resentment of all the wrongs that I had done to her. "Honest to God, I have tried. But every chance of love you had you threw away. Every shred of human warmth you received you cut to pieces. You loathed yourself so much and had created a soil so poisonous, so poor in kindness and understanding, that our love never had a chance to grow." She took in a deep breath and composed herself. "I thought you knew." She lamented. "And now after your death, you believe that everything has changed?" A cynical smile spread over her lips. She gazed up at Ophelia.

"She tricked you. That wonderful saint woman who you worship so much, she had never loved you." Her words were cutting my heart in two, and I wished, oh how I wished that she would stop.

"She lied to you." She said, rubbing more salt into my wounds. "You realize that, now you know who she is? You understand, don't you?"

In my mind's eye, I saw once again how Margaret held up her cursed mirror, and how I was forced to look at my cadaverous self. "Oh you are just back in time!" She croaked with mad excitement, as her talon-like nails peeled away my skin. "Just in time to meet with the devil!"

Her face melted away like a wax candle that had been held too close to the flames, and became that of Ophelia, who laughed at me with all the maliciousness of a grinning skull. Wonderful, beautiful Ophelia, who excelled in everything, wolf slayer and miraculous healer woman, my impossible savior, whose kindness and boundless compassion had been the one celestial light in the darkness of my damned wretched soul. It turned out that the devil was excellent in his craft of deceiving hapless fools like me.

"My poor, clever husband." Anne murmured sarcastically.

Frightened out of my mind, I suddenly felt violently sick. I rolled to my side, and heaved up the content of my stomach over the wet floorboards.

 **II**

The boat continued its silent journey, and glided through the curtain of mist while leaving a pointed trail over the mirror surface of the water, like an arrowhead splicing through the grains of wood. As we went further downstream, the river continued to widen till both shorelines were no longer visible to the naked eye. We came across a small island situated in the middle of the river. It was no more than an angular white rock that jutted out of the water like a lonely shark tooth. The top was covered by a thin layer of dark soil, with young green shoots and small trees clinging onto it with their shallow tangles of roots. A swarm of acrobatic swallows, like a dark restless cloud, danced around the misty air that surrounding this half hidden sanctuary.

It appeared to be our destination, and we were peddling towards the shore. The wooden bottom of the boat scraped over the pebble beach that snaked around the island, till we finally came to a jolted halt.

Margaret rose and cut loose the ropes around my ankles.

"Time to get up hog!"

She kicked me hard in my stomach. I struggled up, and tried to stand on my own unsteady feet. She allowed me to find my balance for a short moment, before forcing me to step out of the boat. Pink swirls leaked out of my leg wound as I splashed through the shallow water. Cold, exhausted, and in agony, I had to let Margaret half drag me on dry land proper. Ophelia did not wait for us, but ventured on, lifting the damp linings of her robe and dress as she stepped nimble over the wet cobbles, her cheeks flustered with the determination of someone whose heart was set on a certain goal.

We followed her, and went round the narrow band of shoreline till the entrance of a monstrously large cave was revealed to us. A hollow structure that resembled a cathedral cut out of rock, the roof of the cave was so far away above us that the imbedded stalactites were like a canopy made of tiny needles. The cave itself sat inside the island like a rotten cavity in an affected tooth. Swallows flew in and out of the entrance at their leisure. The high-pitched bird chatter and the frantic flapping of wings that echoed inside the cavern were almost ear-shattering. I stared up at the rough surrounding walls and saw that they were covered in white stripes of ancient bird shit, dripping down slowly from the countless of nesting places that were scattered all over the rock face.

"Villain. Oh villain!" Margaret cried out. "How dare you to wait standing on your feet in the presence of your betters! Down with you hog! Bend your stubborn knees!"

Margaret pushed me down. I gritted my teeth when fresh wounds tore open over the rough stony ground.

The mad witch herself bowed deeply like a dutiful servant to her lord. Still feeling the wounds from my recent betrayal, my heart rattled wildly inside my chest when the shadow of Margaret's supposed mistress was cast over my shivering wretched self.

"Look at me." Ophelia said in a low voice.

I kept my head bowed and fool heartedly kept staring down at the slow trickle of crimson that came from my leg. The blood pooled in the narrow groves between the stones.

"Richard, why don't you look at me?"

Slowly, I shook my head. "Who _are_ you?" I thought I already knew the answer, but nevertheless longed to hear it, parting from her own lips.

"You know who I am." She replied with a wary smile, faking innocence. "You know me."

"You are the devil." There, I said it. Considering how I had always been the constant victim of deceitful, twofaced, hateful women, Anne Neville, Elizabeth Woodville, and Margaret of Anjou. Even my own mother, who had cursed me in the same breath with these treacherous harlots, how very fitting that I would finally lose my heart, soul, and sanity to the devil in female form.

"You are wrong. I am not the devil."

"If that is true, why is Margaret treating you like you are, prostrating herself at your feet? Why are you two conspiring against me?"

"Margaret is under an enchantment. When she looks at me, she does not see me. She sees my father."

"Your father?"

"I am sorry I lied to you." There was heartbreak in her voice. "I did not want to bring you here so soon. You are not ready, but the circumstances left me with no choice." She glanced over her shoulder at the back of the cave.

Footsteps echoed through the hollow cavern. A man appeared out of the darkness. Dressed in all black, his face was gaunt and narrow, his hair carried a shade of silver. His eyes, pale and grey, were the color of a dark winter day. They were framed by a heavy set of eyebrows that gave him a permanent fierce expression. The rest of his body was long and thin, and he walked with the grace of a long legged spider crawling over to a fly stuck in its web.

There was no doubt in my mind who this stranger was.

My heart rate quickened. I shrunk away in fear, covered my face with both my hands, and from the corner of my eyes, I followed the course of the devil between my trembling fingers.

He did not come for me, but went to the disgraced Lancastrian queen. Margaret herself was still kneeling over the coarse pebble ground. Her old ragged dress still was dripping with muddy river water, but her eyes shone bright with a rare clarity. She glanced from Ophelia to the thin tall man, returned her gaze once more to Ophelia, and then back to the man again.

"My gracious lord." She whispered softly in awe, prostrating herself at his feet as if she was a devoted priestess worshipping a pagan God. "I beg for your forgiveness. Somehow I did not recognize you in your true splendid form."

"No offence taken." The devil replied. "You followed Ophelia's orders to the letter. You could have not provided me with a better service."

"My lord, I brought him here to you just as you have requested." She gazed up at him most expectantly. "I dug him out of his grave, snatched him from death's jealous embrace, and have used your spells to breathe back flesh onto his bare bones. The unworthy soul of Richard Plantagenet is here for you to take. My part of the agreement is thus fulfilled."

"Yes Margaret. You have done all that you have promised." He crouched down beside her, cold grey eyes meeting those of the mad grievous queen. "So it's time that I honor my part of our agreement." He placed his hand on her forehead. His long spidery fingers gently shut her wary eyes.

Where his fingertips touched her eyelids her skin started to glow with the brightness of a weak candle, and quickly grew in strength till it was almost blinding.

"Margaret of Anjou." He called out to her in a voice that sounded like thunder in the mountains. "Your heart has been a furnace of revenge ever since you lost all that was dear to you. Let my light shine on your injured soul like gentle rain. Let it put out the destructive fires that have consumed your heart. Let it be the executioner of your grief, and cut away this sorrow that has taken your sanity."

He slowly lifted his hand and the glow slowly extinguished. His voice was now gentle, and forgiving. "I promised you peace, an end to your long suffering. I grant you that. I grant it to you with all my heart."

Margaret opened her eyes. A hundred expressions passed across her face, confusion, sorrow, and elation. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

The devil gently helped her up her feet. "Now go in peace, and let there be mercy in your heart again. It is in forgiving, that we are forgiven."

He glanced over his shoulder down at me, this doomed wretch who was still trembling at his feet. Margaret followed his gaze. I could not begin to comprehend what his dark sorcery had done to her, but all the malice and hatred that used to shimmer underneath her madness had completely vanished. Margaret gave me a look that was full of compassion. Still wary of her, I backed away when she approached, and flinched from the gentle touch of her fingers on my shoulder.

"Richard Plantagenet." She whispered, taking me into a loving embrace like that a mother would give her child. "I forgive you. I pray that heaven will restore you and make you forget your evils, and with it, that you would finally learn to forgive yourself."

With that said, she rose again. Her eyes were still shining and her chin was held up high when she strolled out of the cavern, carrying herself with the regal poise of the imposing queen she once was.

"What in the name of Jesus have you done to her?!" I cried out, hardly able to contain my hysteria any longer.

"I cured the Lancastrian queen of her grief." The devil replied most calmly.

"You bewitched her! You cast a dark spell on her that diseased her wits!"

"Oh nonsense! If that is the case, she would be raving mad by now, considering that she was not exactly sane to begin with."

I swallowed hard. "Are you going to do the same to me?" I asked with a voice that sounded far more vulnerable than I had wanted.

"No Richard of Bosworth." He replied calmly. "That was not my plan."

"W-who are you? A sorcerer of the dark arts? A demon who devours the souls of sinners? Some sort of fallen angel?" I was rambling, my mind fleeing from reason. "Are you Satan? Lucifer? Beelzebub? Who are you sir?! I beseech you, speak!"

"I can assure you, I am not the devil. If I was him, you wouldn't still be standing here, speaking to me like that."

"Margaret, s-she told me that she did the devil's biddings. You ordered her to bring me here to you. So you must be him!"

"I lied. Margaret's mind was damaged and extremely fragile. She lost her faith in god. I needed to tell her a story that suited her view of the world so she would agree to carry out her tasks for me." He gazed down, his stern piecing eyes fixed on mine. "I am Clemens, the angel of mercy. Richard Plantagenet, I am sorry for all that you had to go through, but it was all necessary to bring you here. I am in great need of your help."

 **III**

Once, there was a dark winged angel named Clemens.

He was given the task by his heavenly father to watch over the Avernus, a golden box that was placed in heaven. He did not know what was held inside, and neither did his brother Raziel, a white winged angel who was charged with the same task.

Despite of this, they both carried out their work most dutifully. For many centuries, the hosts guarded the Avernus, keeping it safe from prying eyes and curious spirits, until one day, Clemens heard a voice, soft like the sound of a leaf falling from a tree, speaking to him.

"Why are you guarding this box?" It whispered. If the voice had a face, it would be smiling at him most wistfully. "Angel of mercy, don't you have more important things to do?"

"Such as?" The dark winged angel replied.

"Have you seen what has been going on down below?"

He replied that he had not. He was unsure where the voice came from, and was rightfully suspicious of it, although it also seemed a bit rude just to ignore it.

"Why don't you take a look?" The voice whispered again.

"I don't think I should do that."

"Oh why not?"

"I have a very important task at hand, given to me by my noble father."

"It's just one quick glance, it will not matter. It's not like the Avernus is going anywhere soon. Not with steadfast Raziel keeping his diligent eye on it."

"I am not going to do it. Stop wasting your breath."

It took centuries of subtle and persistent persuasion, but the little voice had patience. It had all the time in eternity to achieve what it's goal. It also knew that it had been very hard for the angel. It had been eons since he had focused on anything else but his assignment, and eons guarding the Avernus could be so devastatingly boring, even for an angel as old and as wise as Clemens.

"Just one peek then." Clemens finally said, more so to reassure himself than to acknowledge that he was listening to that relentless voice.

He took his eyes off the relic for just for one short second. In the whole of eternity, it was hardly a blink of an eye. He parted the clouds with an elegant gesture of his hand, creating a small gap to peer through, and watched how the events on earth on that one particular day unfolding with his own eyes.

What he witnessed was a vision of nightmares.

The heartbreaking misery, the callous maliciousness, the hateful injustice that sprang so naturally from the fountain of humanity, he saw it all in that one singe glance. It filled Clemens' mind with many troubling, unanswerable questions, and corroded his otherwise undoubting heart with a great overwhelming distrust. The angel of mercy would never be the same again, which was exactly what the little voice had wanted.

"Not very pretty, is it." It commented most sardonically. After that, it did not speak to Clemens again. There was no need to. The damage was already done.

A few thousand years later, Clemens battled Raziel over the possession of the relic, and the Avernus was accidentally opened. The angel of mercy finally came to know what had been kept hidden inside for all that time.

It was not the exactly the world saving answer that he had imagined and had so much hoped for.

 **IV**

"Lucifer." The name parted from Clemens lips as if it was a curse.

I was still kneeling at his feet in the cave. I was cold and miserabe. My leg injury caused me much agony, and I was still fearing for my life. The whole strange account that this self-proclaimed angel had told me, was so confusing and seemed so impossible that I could hardly believe a word of it.

"It was Lucifer. He was kept inside the Avernus, and I set him free." Clemens said ruefully.

"What do you mean, you set him free?"

"After the rebellion, Lucifer was imprisoned by our maker." Ophelia tried to further explain. "He was banished to the chaoplasm, a vast nothingness between worlds. The Avernus that God ordered my father to guard was the only portal to that cursed place."

"But, isn't the devil supposed to be living in hell?"

"Hell is a folly, an invention of the collective human mind." Clemens replied. "But if it makes you feel any better, let me explain it in a way that suits your view of the world. Hell is empty and all the devils are here! I didn't know Lucifer was kept inside the Avernus. He tricked me. He spoke to me, kept whispering in my ear, putting treacherous ideas in my head that the relic contained something virtuous, a treasure that could lead mankind to salvation, but it was him. Only him."

"Father was banished for this from heaven by the other angels." Ophelia clarified. "He has been living here on earth ever since."

"They branded me a traitor." Clemens said with a great bitterness. "No matter how much I pleaded with them, the hosts were convinced that I had joined Lucifer's rebellion, and had become one of his secret disciples. So they cast me out, just like they did to all the others that had followed him."

"Are you truly an angel?" I asked most warily.

"I am a fallen angel." Clemens sighed deeply and shut his eyes for a moment, visibly irritated. "Which means I _was_ an angel."

"But…if you really are a fallen angel, what does that make Ophelia? How could she ever be your earthly daughter?"

"When the hosts cast me down, the long fall from heaven burnt away my wings. My strong, beautiful wings, they used to carry me all the way up to my Father's throne." He cast his eyes regretfully up to the vaulted ceiling.

"When I awoke in the dirt, there was nothing left but two blistered stumps on my back, but some of the black feathers had survived the flames and were scattered over the impact crater. Although it was only a handful, they were all that remained of my old self. Despite my fall from grace, they were unmarked by my sins. They had remained good and pure."

Ophelia shot me a timid glance, and suddenly, I fully understood what the fallen angel was trying to say.

"I made Ophelia. I made my daughter from the earth that was soaked with my blood and the feathers that were left of my broken wings. I created her and breathed life into her lungs." He gazed at Ophelia with a little smile on his lips. "She is a tiny piece of heaven, a remembrance of all that what was once good and pure in me, turned flesh and blood. She is mercy in human form."

"So…Ophelia…she…she is not real."

Ophelia placed her hand on my cheek, trying to calm me down. "I really wanted to tell you everything, I swear."

I flinched away from her touch. "You lied to me. You lied! I cannot believe this. I have been such an idiot! I have placed my trust in a, in a…what?" A mirage of a woman, a magically conjured-up monster made of mud and discarded feathers? If she really was created by an angel, if she really was mercy in human form, how could she have been so cruel to trick me into loving her?

"Oh hush you fool!" Her father interrupted me. "She is human, just like you, and no less real than you are."

"W-what do you mean?"

"Richard, please." Ophelia begged. "Calm down and let him explain -"

"No I won't! I won't calm down!" I blurted out. "Please tell the bloody truth and stop playing with me like a cat would with an injured mouse! I cannot take anymore of this!"

"You are human now, but you have not always been." Clemens explained in a flat voice. "You were what was left inside the Avernus after Lucifer had escaped. A tiny piece of rock, blessed with an immortal light, pale in glow, like a star in the earliest hours of dawn."

"So I am…what? Like frail hope, clinging to the lid of Pandora's box after all the evil has flown out?" Somehow I was still able to force myself to speak these words in relative calm, but inside, I was screaming.

"That is quite an accurate interpretation.' Clemens commented, remaining completely oblivious to my distress. "Maybe you're not as slow as I think you are."

I had enough of this madness, and shook my head wildly as tears of shock started to sting my eyes. "I don't believe you! I cannot believe any of this!"

"Oh, foolish me, being too quick with my conclusions." Clemens commented dryly.

"I am not a thing!" I spat out in utter disgust, my cheeks flushed with great anger and anxiety. "I am a living, breathing, thinking human being! I am a man in charge of his own destiny!"

"Did you not hear me say that you _are_ human?" Clemens replied, visibly annoyed. "Well, at least at the present moment you are." He added as an afterthought.

My eyes widened as I pointed a trembling finger at him. "Oh no, you are not going to do this to me! I have been ridiculed and vilified for how I look and what I am my entire life. Despite of that I clung on to my belief that I am still a man, like any other, despite of my deformities, similar to all of those who have tormented me so. You're not going to take that away! You're not going to reduce me into, into a pawn, - a mindless tool, a-"

"An abstract concept that brings optimism to the frightened, desperate masses, who are about to be exposed to the full wicked reign of my fallen brother's evil?" Clemens replied accusingly.

"I have nothing to do with this! I didn't let the devil out. You did!"

"Yes, I did, and now I want to correct my wrongs, but I need you. I need you to be calm and sane and clever, so stop being the complete opposite of everything I want you to be or I swear to God I will strike you down!"

There was the pledge of thunder and destruction in his words. It forced me to immediate silence and paralyzed me with fear.

"What did you do me?" I finally dared to ask. My world was slipping into madness, and I realized that his answer to my question could only make it worse, but I needed to know, angels and the devil be dammed.

"You must know that you were not safe." Clemens explained. "If I have kept you by my side in your true form, Lucifer and his disciples would have found you. So, like I had created Ophelia, I created you. I put your essence inside a vessel of flesh and bones. I hid you in a human form."

"When lady Cecily of York was pregnant with her 12th child, she was not well." Ophelia further explained. "Father sent me to attend to her. To preserve her unborn child, I disguised myself in my father's form and aided your mother at her sickbed. She was cured when we treated her with a potion."

"One that was made from the ground up dust of that shiny rock that was left in the Avernus." Clemens concluded.

"That's how I became human?" I blurted out. "You let Ophelia feed me to my own mother?"

"If you say it like this, it actually sounds a little disturbing." He commented pensively.

"That is because it bloody well is!" I snapped back. "Merciful Jesus! For the angel of mercy, you do show an alarming lack of empathy! Don't you understand this was a bloody evil act to condemn me from my very birth?!"

"We were not trying to harm you in any way. My father's potion saved your mother's life! It saved yours!" Ophelia pointed out. "Your mother's pregnancy was compromised from the beginning. Without our intervention, you both would have died."

My eyes widened in utter revulsion and disbelief. "Oh so if it wasn't for your divine _intrusion_ , I would not have even been born at all! How absolutely convenient for you both! Do tell me this, and speak truthfully, did your witch brew turn me into this misshapen monster? If so, I really have something to be grateful to you for!"

"The way you are is the result of the way your father and mother are. You are the product of their genetic contributions, combined with the randomness of creation, like all living things." Clemens sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Why am I even explaining this to you? I very much doubt that you understand any of this…" He crouched down and studied my face. His grey eyes looked straight into mine. "Look I can see that you are angry. Angry is good, it is an improvement, far better then you being pathetic and scared witless. I have absolutely no use for your self-pity, but I can use your rage."

"What do you want?" I whispered. I was tired of this nonsense. Tired to be exposed to this whirlwind of heart-aching revelations. Tired to be alive. "Why did you bring me back and torment me so?"

"Like I told you before, I need your help. I let Margaret bring you back from the dead for this very purpose. I need you to help me to put the devil back inside his box."

A pause. Did I really hear what he just said?

"You want me to help you bring down the devil?" I sniggered at this utterly insane, most preposterous idea, but the giddiness quickly subsided when I saw Clemens nodding solemnly in response, wearing a brutally honest expression on face.

"You are mistaken. I cannot be of any use to you." I said, trying to reason with him. "You probably think that some kind of mystical power has been bestowed on me, but I can assure you, I truly have none."

"It's not about that." He replied calmly.

"But…I am no one, not even a man of any influence anymore! Just a worn out has-been king, a homeless beggar who needed to be saved by your daughter from a miserable live in slavery, that's all I am now. Even if I would agree to help you I simply would not know how."

"You think too little of yourself." Clemens said quietly. "And as for not knowing what to do, I can be your teacher. I am very good at it." He offered me a hand. "Rise up Richard Plantagenet, and let me lead your way."

TBC


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

 **I**

When I was a child, our family priest, the so called honorable father John Brown, once spent a whole week trying to teach me and my brothers about heaven. According to the elderly holy man, heaven was a place of unimaginable splendor, of virgin white marble pillars, alabaster statues, rich golden frameworks with exquisite depictions of God, Jesus, and the whole saintly gang, topped off with gilded thrones on elevated platforms. Those who were found worthy would join our heavenly father and spend eternity in his desired company, mingling with the angels while draped in fine robes of silk and gold brocade, and wearing rich jewels crafted from the rarest of gems.

Upon hearing his description, I did not think this particular image of heaven was unimaginable at all. I only had to take a look at the riches displayed inside the priest's chapel and the extravagant way the pompous man was dressed, to get a clear notion where his ideas of heaven came from. When I dared to speak out and call his views rather corrupt and worldly, he berated me and rebuked by questioning my own vision of heaven.

In my naivety, I replied with honesty that I thought that everything, every man, every beast, and every plant in God's creation was considered equal, and therefore we would either all look the same in heaven, or we would not have a physical form at all.

The greybeard seemed to be too confused by my unusual answer to be able to mock or to dismiss it immediately, but my brother George, quick witted and always the funny jester, burst out sniggering and replied; "Dear brother mine, if I looked anything like you I would indeed prefer your version of heaven over that of father Brown's any day!"

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Meanwhile, the witless clergyman, who was usually not much charmed by my brother's smart mouth and crazy parlor tricks, conveniently joined in with the ridicule. That will teach you boy, the vindictive wretch eagerly pointed out, let it be a lesson to you not to be disrespectful to your elders!

The only wise lesson his spiteful idiocy had taught me is that a man's view of heaven revealed much about his character. Father Brown was clearly corrupt to the bone and had an ungodly attachment to the finer things in life. Judging by the way how Ophelia's father, had recreated his version of heaven in his place of banishment, I could only conclude that he had an unhealthy obsession with regaining access to this lost paradise.

The fallen angel led us deeper inside the underground bowels of the cave. Instead of it becoming darker as logic dictated, it became lighter with every step, but without any visible source of light. It was as if the white rocks themselves were emitting a mysterious glow that illuminated our passageway. As we ventured further, the formless rocks began to take more familiar shapes. I saw flocks of birds, cut out of the white, almost translucent rocks. Live-like in detail, size, and stance, they seemed to have just turned to stone at the exact moment when they were about to take flight. When I craned my neck back and stared up to the ceiling, the rest of the flock could be seen, their wings spread wide as if the creatures were battling an imaginary storm.

A little further down, the cave took on the appearance of a long corridor. Majestic pillars spiraling towards the ceiling where they bloomed into a crown of perfectly symmetrical arches. It gave the impression that we had turned into ants and were scuttling near the roots of giant plants. Between these pillars stood neatly at equal distance, colossal statues of angels. They all emitted a white celestial light, and were perfect in their divine forms, their faces beautifully crafted and expressive, their wings folded out wide. Like the birds, they looked like they were about to fly up to heaven.

"Ah! My most gracious brothers." Clemens explained. "Oh how I miss their companionship. Sometimes I pace around the corridor for hours, just to have a word with them."

I glanced sideways at Ophelia with a questioning look, which she answered with the slightest of shrugs.

"Of course, they are less talkative than the real ones, but I find that sometimes I prefer them this way. They seem to agree more and argue less."

"How convenient that must be." I muttered, wondering why in the devil's name I always ended up in the hands of complete and utter lunatics.

We reached the end of the tunnel. On both sides, cut out of solid rock, were two alcoves. In one stood a gilded cage in which a black feathered creature was kept. It was as large as a May calf, and although it appeared to be a bird of some kind, complete with avian features like wings and a long twitchy tail, it looked misshapen and vicious. When it saw us approach, it started to beat with it gigantic wings, banging the tips against the bars, while uttering a fearsome screech.

In the other alcove was a mural chiseled into the white rock. It depicted a door, one that appeared to provide access into a hidden garden as it sat in a stonewall that was covered by green creepers. Behind it, the upper branches of trees and flowering shrubs could be seen.

"Where are we?" I asked, keeping a nervous eye on the bird. It seemed to be getting increasingly anxious and was now jumping around in its cage, flapping madly while sending its black feathers flying in the air.

Clemens gave me an incredulous look. "Well isn't it obvious? You're facing your destiny."

"All I see is a golden cage with a monstrous crow and a stone mural."

"And you are a fallen star disguised in human form. I assume that by now you can understand that appearances can be deceptive." He pointed at the two alcoves. "What you see before you are two doorways. One is leading to freedom, the other to a quest."

"Do you always twist your tongue with riddles?"

"Oh it really depends on the company." He replied with an amused smile, but the slight pull of his upper lip showed that he was losing his patience. "If they are too feebleminded I rather not waste my breath and don't speak to them at all."

I could hardly imagine this loud bombastic man to be silent, not even for the briefest of seconds. "Which one is to freedom?" I asked, requesting what my heart was longing for the most.

As if he had expected this question to come from me, Clemens grinned and nodded silently at the alcove in which the bird cage sat.

"It's not what you think Richard." Ophelia warned. "It will not lead you to your freedom."

"She is right, it leads to mine." Clemens revealed with a pompous smile. "I have been imprisoned on this one rock island for decades. I cannot leave this place, not without your help, and not without a blood sacrifice."

"And that is what that other portal is for? Is that going to be my task? I go through that doorway, take on your ridiculous quest, free you from your prison, and you go find and have a mighty battle Lucifer?"

"Yes, that was more or less plan." Clemens commented, folding his hands behind his back.

"Aha, and no doubt this mission is very dangerous, life-threatening, and almost impossible to achieve?" I mocked. I realized very well that I was testing his tolerance with my insolence, but under these circumstances, my wit and sarcasm was all I had left in my defense.

"Not if that task is assigned to the right man." The smile he now flashed at me seemed as sincere as the grin of a fleshless skull.

"What do you exactly want from me? What is on the other side of that stone door?"

"To free me, you need to get your hands on the key." He pointed out the lock on the cage. "And if you want to put the devil back inside the box –"

"You need the box, the Avernus. What else do you require?"

"A set of chains. You cannot expect my illustrious brother to go quietly without a good fight, but all the angels left in heaven will not be enough to subdue him. Lucifer will have be dragged back into the chaoplasm by his chains."

"It will require the chains that the furies used to bind themselves to Orestes." Ophelia added.

"Orestes?" I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"The son of king Agamemnon, prince of Mycenae. The furies punished him for murdering his own mother."

"I remember that story." I muttered. "Orestes and his torment by the furies. Our tutor's assistant used to tell us this story if we behaved ourselves during class. It's a Greek myth, just a fairy tale to scare little children."

"It is true. It is all true." Ophelia replied. "Richard, how can you still doubt my words even now?"

"Because you have sold me so many of your fantastical lies already." I told her most reproachfully.

She remained silent, and appeared so repentant that I could be easily fooled again to believe that her remorse was sincere.

"Stop blaming her." Clemens said firmly. He walked over to me, still perfectly calm, still perfectly in control. Oh how would I love to smash my fists into his cold condescending face. "My daughter was only trying to do what was right. So should you, Richard of York, the fallen king." He gazed down at my hands. "You can see it sometimes, don't you? I know you do. I can see it too. There is so much blood on them that even with all the water of Neptune's oceans, they shall never be washed clean again."

"My sins are none of your concern." I sneered back at him.

"Oh but they are my concern. Tell me, have you no desire to atone for your heinous crimes? Don't you wish you don't have be afraid anymore in the dark when you are all alone and left with only your burdened conscience to keep you company?"

I thought of how my life would be without her, without Ophelia. I thought of the many people who I had killed, all those ghosts that were still buried deep inside my subconscious, ready to re-emerge as soon as the thin sheet of normality was breached. A sense of great hopelessness and dread came over me when I realized that without her, I would be cast back into that darkness, back into insanity. I would become a victim again of my own dreadful conscience. Then I remembered what Clemens did to mad Margaret.

"If I help you, will you free me from my guilt, like you did with Margaret of Anjou?"

"If that is what you desire. Yes. Yes I will."

"And afterwards, you will leave me in peace, both of you?" I shot an accusing glance at him _and_ Ophelia, for despite knowing and despairing how my life would be unbearable without her, I was still angry with her, and so foolishly proud.

"I vow that I will." Said Clemens firmly. Ophelia only replied with a silent timid nod.

"And what will happen if I decide not to help you?"

A sly smile curled the corners of Clemens's lips. "I shall be extremely disappointed. I shall regret your decision. I can also assure you that _you_ shall regret your decision too, and most grievously so. We shall be both utterly devastated." The smile vanished from his face. "My fallen brother Lucifer has regained his liberty, and is about to bring a great evil to this world. If he succeeds, all of it shall weigh heavy on my conscience. You are the only path that could lead to me to salvation. I am sorry Richard, but I cannot allow you to have a will of your own."

"So I have no choice." I concluded. A miserable feeling crept inside my stomach. For a man who had spent most of his life dealing out threats to others, I was quick to recognize that I was now finding myself helplessly at the receiving end.

"See, you can be rather clever, if you try hard enough." Clemens noted with a faked smile that did not reach his eyes. "Now stay that way. Try to keep up with the lessons." He came closer, and the smile abruptly disappeared from his face.

"You have no choice whatsoever." He told me in a low, dangerous voice, knowing very well that he had won. "Now, shall I send you on you way?"

Before I could protest, the flat slate of rock that was carved out in the form of a large wooden door in the mural opened up. The cavern was suddenly flooded with the sunlight as bright as that of a cloudless afternoon. A warm pleasant wind swept in and brought on its trail fragrances of spurge and cypress, and the smell of roof tiles baking in the hot sun. I squinted, and raised my hand to shield my eyes against the brightness, but still saw very little. What in heaven's name lies behind that portal?

"Beware, the custodians of the relics will not so easily give up their charge. The trials to obtain them shall be difficult. I will let Ophelia come with you. She will guide and protect you, just like she has done your whole life."

"What do you mean my whole life? We have only met last winter." I replied. The open doorway appeared to be bigger, the light even brighter. Was it my own overactive imagination, or had it just moved towards me?

"You will be safe." The fallen angel said. "She will keep you safe, and return you back to me."

I had not taken a single step but I could swear that I had come closer to the portal, and so had Ophelia. We were standing on the threshold, side by side, Ophelia's black locks fluttered behind her in the warm breeze when she turned and gave me an alarmed look. The light was now blinding. The heat wrapped itself around my body and I was sweating like I was out in an open field on a hot summer day.

"Don't forget!" Clemens called behind us. "The key, the Avernus, and Orestes chains, we shall need all three, or all shall be lost!"

There came a sudden great rush of air from the cavern behind us. It was accompanied by a loud whooshing sound, as if a large flock of birds was lifting up. A thousand pairs of wings were beating simultaneously and sweeping into the sky. The strong current pushed us right through the blinding light of the portal, heading straight into the unknown.

 **III**

I was ready to scream out in terror, half expecting that we were sent to a horrible fire and brimstones place. Instead, Ophelia and I found ourselves outside in the open. We were in a lush, warm, and most beautiful garden, the sort of idyllic green haven I imagined some long dead Greek philosopher would have the pleasure to stroll around back in distant antiquity. We stood on a narrow gravel path flanked by large terra cotta pots, each containing miniature citrus and peach trees. It led to a lawn with meticulously pruned hedges. Behind it, a strange looking pink building stood in the far distance.

The portal behind us had disappeared, and a hooded figure was coming our way, leaning heavy on his wooden staff. It was a tall man, dressed in a long habit, made from a white cloth that reflected the relentless midday sun so effectively that it appeared to glow.

"Travelers, you are most welcome." He spoke in a warm and gently voice. His movements were precise and elegant. If the angel of mercy had been a mad whirlwind of a man, this man was more like a summer cloud drifting over peaceful pastures. He was now so close that it allowed me to take a good at his face. I noticed, despite the long shadow cast by his hood that there was something wrong with his eyes. Where these features should be, were only two patches of rough scar tissue. The stranger extended his hands towards Ophelia and me.

"You are blind." I noted.

"Yes. I am." He paused for a moment. "Would you mind if I touch your face? It will help me to know my guests better."

"I don't mind." Ophelia replied, and let the blind man's fingers trace over her nose, cheeks and lips. When the man turned in my direction and was about to do the same to me, I quickly stepped back. "I am not going to let you do anything until you tell us where we are and who you are."

Our blind host lowered his hands slowly. "Oh do forgive my rudeness. I have not received visitors for a very long time. My name is Raziel. Before my fall from grace, I was known as the angel of duty."

"Raziel, I know that name." Ophelia muttered. "You were the second guardian of the Avernus."

"And you are Ophelia." Our host replied. "Beautiful and merciful Ophelia, the daughter of Clemens."

Ophelia furrowed her brows in surprise. "How did you know?"

"Your features." The host explained with the kindest of smiles. "They have the angel of mercy's delicate celestial touch. Your father used to be quite the artist."

"Yes I understand he does a lot of sculpting in his spare time." I murmured, thinking of the disturbing row of giant angels that the Clemens had so skillfully hacked out to keep himself company.

The blind host cocked his head in my direction. "Richard Plantagenet, I presume. I have heard many things about you. None of it was good. Was brother Clemens finally able to convince you to do his biddings?"

"He did not convince me. It was more of a threat really." I replied resentfully. "How did you know it's me?" I asked, becoming increasingly suspicious of these fallen angels. So far, they had not proven to be very trustworthy.

"I was expecting you." He replied with a broadening smile. He spread his arms wide as if to welcome us again. "In fact, this whole place has been waiting for your arrival for a very long time."

TBC


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

 **I**

The bedroom that the fallen angel had offered to me to spend the night was pink, just like the rest of his strange palace. The walls, the fabric covering the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, the tapestries on the walls, the drapes and the sheets of my four-poster bed, everything was pink. It was such a vibrant, unnatural color that it hurt my eyes just to look at it. I sat down next the window overlooking the garden, grimacing as I tried to lift my injured leg onto a pink padded stool. Everything in this room was also so absurdly comfortable. My back was half disappearing into the chair, as if the thing was trying to swallow me whole. Is this what heaven was like? Everything covered in fluffy, cloudlike cushions so you didn't have to be reminded that you actually had a backside?

More confused than reassured by my bizarre surroundings, I rolled up the fabric of my trousers. Underneath the dried up brown mess, the wound was still weeping blood. The curtains, despite its horrible color, looked cleaner than my own clothes had been for a very long while. So I reached for them and ripped a long strip from the cloth to use it as a bandage. I was already wrapping it around my wound when someone knocked on the door.

"Richard?" It was Ophelia. Her hesitant announcement was followed by a second brief knock. "May I come in?"

"Go away." I shouted through the door. I really did not wish to see her, fearing for what it would do to my resolve.

"I know you're still angry with me. Please, let me explain. Please open the door. We must talk."

I shook my head and pressed my hands against my ears. I did not want to listen to her. I never wanted to be fooled by her again.

"Your father did all the explaining already. There is really nothing left to say."

There came a long pause from the other side before she continued.

"I love you." Her voice was trembling slightly, and sounded frail like injured bird. "You may also not believe this, but it is the truth. I do love you."

I couldn't help it. Her confession stabbed daggers into my heart. Before I could control myself, I was rushing over to the door like the stupid fool I was and pulled it wide open to confront her.

"You lied to me about everything! How can I ever trust you again?"

How, I really wanted to ask, could I ever trust anybody in this world again, if I had even lost my faith in her?

"You told me your father had died. You said that you have lived in that cabin all by yourself since you were a little girl. You lied to me. You lied and you lied, from the very first day that we have met! Was anything that you told me actually real?! Tell me, did you really save all those people in the monastery, or was that also just a conjured up magical trick to impress me?"

"Of course those people were real." She replied, her face pale, alarmed by my anger. "You helped to save them. If wasn't for you ringing that bell, they wouldn't have fled in time."

Her face was one of deep sorrow, her forehead showed deep lines of regret, but there was this hint of defiance that still burnt brightly when she stared back at me with her piercing green eyes. "And yes! I have lied to you. I did it because I needed to prepare you for what was to come and I wanted to keep you safe. I swear I have never done anything to hurt you!"

"Your father ordered you to keep me safe! You just did what he commanded you to do."

"Maybe, in the beginning…"She clutched her forehead and looked away. "I used to help you because I wanted to comply to my father's wishes, but as I came to know you…"

"How can you even claim that?!" I swirled around in anger, my lips spreading into a sarcastic, joyless grin. "You really have no idea who I am!" I thought of the all the horrible secrets that I had kept from her. All the evil I had done and had I kept buried deep inside my soul. "Have you even seem me at my worst?" I asked, my eyes burning with self-loathing.

Then it struck me.

"Your father said something, just before we crossed over through the portal. He said that you will guide and protect me, just like you have done my entire life. Is that true?" It was an upsetting thought that soon turned into an equally upsetting realization. "It is true, isn't? That woman, who I have met in my youth, that one cold winter night when I ran away from the Christmas celebrations, that was you."

"Yes! Yes that was me." She admitted, pushing out the words in one deep ragged breath as she entered the room. "I was also your tutor's assistant who watched you fight back after being tormented by your bully cousins for so long. I was the nameless servant girl in your household, when you began scheming for your brother's throne. And I have also been a lady in waiting for your queen, when she was murdered on your command. I was even out there with you on the cold Bosworth battlefield when you breathed out your final breath."

"So you really have been there, my whole entire life." I muttered, baffled by this revelation. "You knew how I was." There was no use in trying to hide anything from her anymore. She knew all about my crimes. She had watched me grow up from a deeply uphappy child to a cruel vindictive youth that had lost every trace of human kindness, and had seen the vicious tyrant I had finally become. She had stared this loathsome monster in the eyes, and knew every ugly blood stained detail of my rotten soul.

She should have fled. She should have given up on me, or at least condemned me like all the others for what I was and what I had done, but instead…

I swallowed hard, and cast my gaze up at the ceiling, blinking away the moistness that stung my eyes. "If you know who I truly am, how can you still claim to love me?"

"Because I had all this time to really know you." She blurted out, shaking her head. "Oh Richard, you're such a stubborn man! You may still believe that you are a monster who has no right to the love or kindness of another living soul, but I know your heart, perhaps even better than you do yourself. You do deserve forgiveness, and you do deserve my love."

"You mean, the mercy of the daughter of a fallen angel?" I replied cynically, but deep down, I truly wished with my whole heart that everything she told me was really true.

"Do you remember that night when we were celebrating Mayday in the monastery?" She asked, coming closer and wrapping her arms over my shoulders. "I told you that we both are what our fathers made us, but we don't need to be. I assure you, I love you not because of what I am, because of how my father had created me, but because life has changed me." She took my withered hand and held it close to her heart. "Knowing you has changed me."

She looked deep into my eyes and my resolve fell to pieces. How could I ever turn her away? She was the only person in my life that meant anything to me. Without her, I would be just lost in a world of people with whom I felt no connection, and for whom I knew no kindness, and no mercy. Losing her was like losing my final grip on humanity.

"I have never done anything good in my whole life." I told her, finally admitting to my deepest, darkest fears. "I was a villain. I lied and I betrayed and I have killed so many people. Even those who were close to me. How can I ever be brave or good? How can I ever be anything like you?"

She smiled a soft troubled smile. "You once thought that you could not feel remorse, but you showed me that you can. You have never considered putting yourself in danger to save another life, but you did. You never believed you would love another soul, and still you do." Gently, her fingers caressed my cheek. "So if all that can change, why cannot the rest of your heart?"

 **II**

"I trust that your overnight stay here was comfortable. Nothing is more important than a good night rest to prepare oneself for the challenges of the day." Raziel said in a pleasant way while he guided us through the garden. It was still early in the morning. The sun hung low on the horizon and the heat of yesterday was still a distant memory.

"Your leg certainly sounds much better." He commented, pointing the curved end of his staff at the neat white linen bandages wrapped around my injured leg. Ophelia had used them to redress my wound after she had convinced me that unsterilized pieces of curtains were not exactly suitable.

"You know the condition of my injury just by listening?" I asked not without disbelief.

"Oh you can learn a lot about a man from the sound of his footfall. Your steps are far less hesitant and much steadier than yesterday. I can also learn much about human emotions by just listening to your voices. For example, I could learn, from the way Ophelia has greeted me this morning that a great grief has lifted from her heart. The pitch of her voice sounded much more content, almost joyful even."

"We are very much obliged to you for you hospitality." Ophelia hastily interrupted him.

"No doubt your journey to get here was difficult." Raziel replied with a knowing smile. "But that is how it should be. This paradise was created with only one sole purpose."

"And what would that enigmatic purpose happen to be?" I asked.

"To protect my charges from falling into the hands of the wrong angels."

He led us through a narrow opening in a row of hedges. On the other side was an endlessly long rectangular pond with on one end a large artificial waterfall. A crystal clear stream was cascading down from a gently slope. Neat lines of limestone gargoyle were spewing out jets of water on both sides. The other end of the pond completely disappeared over the horizon.

"This place is like a surreal dream." I commented, noticing that the size of the pond in proportion of the garden was all wrong and quite impossible.

"This garden is not anywhere in your world." Raziel explained. "It is sealed outside of your universe, even out of time itself. The hosts have created this place to hide the 3 relics that are required to defeat the Fallen One."

"The key, the chains of Orestes, and the Avernus." Ophelia remembered. "Father has already told us about these."

"You said that this place had been waiting for me." I noted.

"Only the Morningstar was destined to come here and to retrieve the relics. And since the Morningstar has become Richard Plantagenet, we have indeed been expecting the last of the York kings." Raziel gazed around the garden as if in thought. "I have been the guardian of this place for a very long time. Although I wish for nothing more but for you to succeed, you must realize Plantagenet, that I cannot help you. The trails must be successfully completed on your own strengths and virtues. Clemens was the one who was tasked by the hosts to prepare you for all this. I hope, for your own sake, that he has performed his duty well."

I glanced over my shoulder at Ophelia, and my heart filled with hope. "Yes." I replied. "He did."

"Well then, let the first trail begin."

Raziel picked up a stone and held it above the dark surface of the pond. "The first thing you must learn is that the rules of nature do not apply here. You can see right through the water to the bottom of this pond, so it appears to be very shallow. But look what happens when I do this."

He dropped in the pebble. For a remarkable long time, it continued to sink down to the bottom.

"It is taking much longer than you have anticipated because it is far deeper than it looks." Raziel explained when finally the peddle reached the bottom and started to settle down. As soon as it touched the other stones, turbulent waves swept over the murky bedding and revealed a graveyard of glistening metal underneath.

Ophelia came closer and peered through the water surface to examine it. "The whole floor is covered with keys." She remarked.

"Yes. There all sorts of keys down there. Keys made out of silver, copper, and metal. Rusty keys, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Keys that fit locks that would open doors to long lost palaces with unfathomable riches. Keys that give access to secret chambers where no living soul has ever stepped inside since the very beginning of time. Even keys that open portals into other times and dimensions. So many keys, but only one that will free the fallen angel of mercy."

"How do we know which key to chose?" I asked.

"Well, that would be your task to find out." Raziel said, and with a short sudden push with his staff, he launched Ophelia into the pond. The moment she disappeared beneath the surface, the water above her started to harden into ice and began to seal her in. I rushed over to the side and smashed my fists into the growing ice sheets. To my great distress, it didn't even made a tiny dent.

"Oh please don't waste precious time on trying to save her by breaking the ice." Raziel warned me. "It won't open up till you have found the right key."

I watched with utter horror how Ophelia struggled underneath the ice. A precious string of air parted from her lips as she pushed against the frozen transparent surface.

"But she doesn't know which one to pick!"

"You could just tell her." He replied with stone-cold calm. "It's your trail. She can still hear you."

"But how do I know which one it is! There must be thousands of them. Stop this I beg you!" I fell down on my knees. "Please stop this! You're going to kill her!"

" _You_ are going to kill her, Plantagenet, not me, by failing her. Still, it's not to late. I saw her take in a good deep breath before she went under. You have minutes."

I uttered a cry of frustration and scrambled to the side of the pond where I tried frantically to scan over the bottom, but the cloudy crystals in the ice layer obstructed my view. I could see no deeper than a few meters below the surface. My heart sank. Finding the right key was an absolute impossible task. I didn't even know what the blasted thing was supposed to look like. But then I remembered, the angel of mercy had pointed out his path to freedom to me, the alcove with the gilded cage. Was there a lock on that cage? If I could just remember the lock, and with that the precise shape of the keyhole, maybe that would help…but there was no lock, was there? I went through the memory of that exact moment again and again and I was almost certain…but if there wasn't a lock, what was Clemens pointing at? What could be the lock of the key to his freedom? He wasn't pointing at the cage…It just looked like he did, because I wasn't really paying attention, no, he was pointing at that monstrous crow.

 _"I have been imprisoned on this one rock island for decades. I cannot leave this place, not without your help, and not without a blood sacrifice."_

The answer struck me like a lightening bolt and I shouted from the bottom of my lungs through the thick layer ice, hoping desperately that Ophelia was still able to hear me.

"It's not shaped like key! It's more like an arrow or a knife, something sharp that will draw blood! Please Ophelia! Try to find it!"

Thankfully, she appeared to have heard me and swirled around to dive towards the bottom in search for the relic. My heart rattled like mad when I watched her disappear into the deep. It then soon began to slide into a deep dark pit of despair as seconds ticked by into minutes without any signs of her return. I was nervous and frightened, oh so very frightened, and began to beg and bargain with god or whoever was up there to please let her live, please let her come back. I only dared to draw another breath again when I finally saw her pale moon face shimmer underneath the ice, her black hair a swirling cloud around her large, anxious eyes. She held in her hand an object, cold, glistening, and sharp. With the last of her strength she stabbed it into the bottom of the ice sheet. A web of cracks spread quickly from the impact point and shattered the surface into a million glistening crystals. I reached out and grabbed her hand. It was ice cold to the touch. I dragged her out of the pond and onto dry land, cradling her face while calling out her name repeatedly. When her eyes at long last fluttered open, I breathed out a deep sigh of relief.

"Did we retrieve it?" She wheezed, coughing up water. "Did I get the right one?"

"Congratulations." Raziel remarked, clapping his hands. "You have found the right key. If you have not, you would have simply drowned."

"Simply?" Anger rushed through my veins and I stared up at the blind angel with a hate-fuelled look. "Simply?! Do you fallen angels have solid stone cold rocks instead of hearts?! You almost killed her!"

"It would have been most unfortunate." The blind angel mused, oh so very rationally and devoid of any empathy. "But Ophelia is the daughter of Clemens. She of all people knows that we all must play or part in our maker's design."

"If these ridiculous trials are really in our maker's plan, then they are flawed! It is completely pointless and sadistic!" I sneered back at him.

"Richard, please." Ophelia interrupted, trying to calm me down. "Listen to me. We have to go through this. There is no other way."

"This is the only way to defeat Lucifer." Raziel replied firmly. "We all have our own duties, Plantagenet. Even you. Now try to be happy what you have achieved here. If god is willing, you will soon retrieve the other relics."

I stared at the key in Ophelia's hand, the rusted metal shaped like an arrow that was not worth even a second of her life, and cursed my decision for having ever accepted Clemens' offer.

TBC


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

 **I**

The following day, Raziel brought us to the other side of the garden where he guided us through a most confusing maze. In the middle of that maze was a cave entrance. It was flanked on each side by statues of women and men, captured in moments of despair. Some of them were in the act of gouging out their eyes. Others were racking the flesh from their cheeks, or were swallowing poison.

"Where are you leading us?" Ophelia asked, glancing at a statue of suicidal Cato, who was tearing apart the sutures of his belly wound to pull out his intestines.

"I am bringing you to your next trial." Raziel replied. We followed him and entered a dark, ancient looking tunnel that descended over a flight of countless stairs down deep into the earth. When the walls started to weep ground water, and tangles of roots broke through the ceiling, the most frightening screams could be heard from the far end of the underground passageway. "I believe our hosts may have already sensed our presence." Raziel commented. "You better prepare yourselves. The sisters are known to have most volatile tempers."

The mad cries intensified till it was echoing all around us. We entered a vast hollow space, a hidden cave with right in the middle of it, a deep dark pit. It was as if the ground there had been swallowed up by the earth itself.

On the edge sat three female figures, each hunched down on overhanging rocks.

They were the most hideous creatures I had ever seen.

Down below, in the very bottom of the crater was a man huddled down in an animal-like posture. He looked miserable, emaciated, and deranged, weeping constantly while uttering beastlike howls. Deep bloody trenches ran across his cheeks as he continuously clawed with his long dirty fingernails at his own flesh. He wore a thick metal dog collar around his neck. It was attached to three long chains, each of them running through a separate ring that was secured to the filth-covered floor.

Each end of the three rattling chains was held by the frightful creatures.

The woman whose bare skin was covered in green scales gawked at me with cold reptilian eyes, and when she pulled on the chain and screamed down at the prisoner down below, her tongue slithered out. It was thin and forked like that of a serpent.

"Look sisters!" She hissed, exposing her fangs. "Look who have finally come to visit us! It's the girly made of angel feathers and the glowing rock who someday hopes of becoming a real boy!"

The others laughed and screeched hysterically. The second witch, her body covered in red brown fur, her hair a mad red mane of tangles, with two curved ram horns growing out of it, yanked harshly on her end of the chain, choking the mad man down in the pit till his cries died down to a pitiful whimper.

"Who are these vile creatures?" I asked, gazing at Raziel and Ophelia.

"They are the furies, the guardians of honor." The blind angel replied.

A flame ignited in the palm of her hand and grew into a long burning spear. Baring her row of sharp lion-like teeth, she hurled it down with a mad hateful scream. The spear buried itself deep in the man's leg, sending him howling like a mindless injured beast.

"Please let them stop." Ophelia asked, finding it all very hard to watch.

"I can't. You know I can't. It is their duty." Raziel replied. "The sisters are the enforcers of devine punishment. They follow no rules and are bound to no-one. Their task is to castigate traitors and murderers. To them, their work is sacred."

"Who is down there in the pit?" I asked, staring at the man who was hardly recognizable as a human being.

"Orestes." Ophelia said, keeping her eyes fixed on the furies.

"Correct." Raziel stated. "The poor wretch has been their prisoner for over thousands of years. It's been a long while since the sisters had anyone else worthwhile to torment. I figured they must be bored by now, but no."

"He has completely lost his mind." I whispered, noticing how the tortured prisoner was not even trying to pull the spear out, but in stead was twisting it deeper into the wound.

"His reason has eroded away like a mountain might be grinded down by time into the smallest, most insignificant grains of sand." The blind angel said, with a sly, almost knowing smile. "Believe me Plantagenet, no one is strong enough to stand against the avenging sisters."

Plantagenet! Plantagenet! Plantagenet!" The sisters screeched in a loud scornful chorus. "We know why the dead York king is here! The worthless angel Clementia has ordered you to take our chains."

"Yes." Ophelia spoke. "It was my father who sent us here to retrieve the relic. I beseech you, righteous sisters, please help us."

The third sister, covered in grey feathers, with claws for hands and feet and a hooked beak like nose cackled madly. "Why would we help you, feather girl? The quarrels and matters of the hosts are none of our concern."

"But we need those chains to bind Lucifer to his prison." Ophelia further explained. "We act in the name of honor and justice, just like you."

"We have nothing in common with you. We do not see good, we do not see evil." The serpent-like fury said.

"We do not see justice in the way of the hosts." Revealed her beast-like sister.

"We only seek retribution for those who we find guilty." Finished the bird-like fury. "The chains are bound to Orestes, his rightful punishment for breaking the sacred oath between mother and child."

"Matricide." Whispered the other two sisters. "Truly the most atrocious of crimes."

"It cannot be given away to any other cause." Said the bird-like fury.

"Not while the chains are still bound to Orestes." Repeated the other sisters.

"If you don't want to give it. I will go down there and take it myself." Ophelia replied determinedly.

"You may try and you will fail." The beastly fury hissed dangerously, forming in her palm, another flaming spear.

"Stop!" I yelled, just when Ophelia was about to descend down into the pit. "Stop it! Don't go in there." I pulled her back from the edge.

"We need those chains!" Ophelia replied with a stubborn look on her face.

"Yes, but we are not going to get it by getting you killed." I turned to the furies. "You, bunch of vengeful women, what kind of villain would you seek out if you were not so occupied with torturing this poor sod?"

"Anyone who has broken a sacred oath."

"Anyone who has made a pledge on his honor and has forsaken it."

"Anyone who has murdered his own kin."

I stepped forward. "I have done all that." I admitted, lowering my head and glaring up at these vile creatures. "And I have done much more."

"Oh but we know, Richard of York. We know."

"We are aware of how much you have sinned against your own blood."

"But alas."

"Alas."

"Alas?" I repeated. "Really? Why do you even hesitate? Take that collar off your old charge and put it around my neck." I told them, shaking my head at Ophelia, who was about to interrupt me. "Seriously, his crimes pales in comparison to mine. You're wasting your talents on this minor villain."

"Richard please." Ophelia begged. "Don't do this."

"I got this. Trust me." I whispered, but inside I was screaming and scared out of my wits to lose control of this dangerous situation. "I am right here." I proclaimed as loudly and bravely to the furies as I could. "Waiting for you to take me on. Release Orestes, and take me as your prisoner in his place."

"Very tempting indeed, but we will not." The serpent woman replied.

"We unfortunately cannot." Lamented the beast-like fury.

"But why?" I asked.

"We need to be summoned."

"We need someone who trusted you and who you have wronged to speak out a curse against you."

"I've been cursed many times. Even my own mother cursed me." I replied to the furies. It was true. She did it when she found out that I have murdered my brother George and her grandsons. "She told me to despair and die." I added, and as I said it, found that the memory of that day still could open old wounds. "That should be enough, wouldn't it?"

"She didn't summon us."

"She prayed to your God."

"Your victim needs to name us."

"The kindly ones."

"She needs to summon the kindly ones."

"The balm of the long suffering, the avengers of wrongs."

"But even then, we wouldn't go after you."

"We are bound to Orestes."

"The chains are still attached to Orestes."

The serpent woman opened her mouth wide and her fangs spit out a spurt of acid down in the pit. It landed on the back of the doomed man where started to melt away his flesh, causing him to twist his body in horrible agony. His cries of suffering rose up from the pit, and for a moment, I was back inside the fighting pit, and remembered exactly how horrible it was, with my heartless human masters yanking on my chains.

The furies could not let go of Orestes, because the chains were still attached to him. They will only leave their charge if he was removed.

It was all coming back to me, The memories of the bloody fights with the ferocious hounds, the horrific bite wounds, and the daily cruelties that I was made to suffer by Greybeard's and Audemar's hands, it all came crashing into me, like a shameful, dreadful tide. I looked down at the suffering man below. What sort of life had this poor wretch left? Who would not wish, in the face of an eternity being tortured by these vicious heartless harpies, to be released by the finality of death?

The beastlike fury screeched when I grabbed the spear out of her hands. As hot steel burnt onto the skin of my palm and fingers, I hardly even notice it, so much relief I felt to find out that I could indeed yield it. With one well-aimed throw, I cast the spear down into pit where it pierced right through Orestes heart. He rolled his eyes up to heaven, uttered a harsh heartbreaking cry, then sank through his knees and slumped forward. A slow trickle of blood ran down the corner of his gaping mouth. The tormented prisoner was no more.

The furies erupted into a frenzy of hysterical cries.

"You killed him!" The bird-like fury raged.

"You took him from us!" Her beast-like sister yelled out.

"You vile, oath breaking crook back!" The reptilian fury cried out, and slithered her tongue over her black sneering lips.

"You disgusting, spiteful, murderous toad!" The three sisters exclaimed and came for me, all three of them, slithering like a serpent and stalking like a beast while the third jumped into the air with her talons raised.

With my heart drumming inside my ears, I stood my ground. "Orestes is dead." I proclaimed. "Your bond with him is no more. The chains are now free to be used again."

As if time was trying to catch up with the dead man, the body of Orestes started to disintegrate at a most frightening speed. His skin turned grey before our eyes, then blackened, his eyes liquefied into two dark pools swimming with maggots, while his hollow cheeks burst open and then collapsed to reveal the white of the bone underneath.

"Oh Richard. What have you done…" Ophelia muttered, pulling me back from the furious sisters in a vain effort to protect me from their fury.

All three sisters pulled on the chains simultaneously and with a disgusting snapping sound, the neck broke in two and the collar was released.

"We will hunt you down!"

"We will haunt you in your dreams!"

"We will punish you for your insolence!"

They came closer, hissing and jangling with the chains, their mouths wide open to show me their fangs and teeth.

"Curse him!" They sneered at Ophelia. "Curse him for us feather girl!"

Ophelia gave me a long lingering gaze. There was look on her face that I had never seen before. "I will _not_ do a such thing." She finally replied.

"Oh, don't be such a disappointment to your daddy now." The feathered fury commented, raising her upper lip.

"I will not condemn this man." Ophelia said. "You want me to name you and bind you to your next target. Fine by me. Kindly ones, hear me speak my curse. I curse Lucifer, the fallen angel, the serpent of paradise, the lord of the flies, bind him for me and bring me justice. Bind him and restore my father's honor."

The howling furies transformed into a most terrifying screeching mass of shadows, swirling around us, like we were standing right in the eye of a violent storm.

"Is that what you want?"

"Are you sure, little feather girl?"

"Is this truly what you wish for?!" The mad sisters whispered.

"Yes! Help us. Help us bind Lucifer." Ophelia replied.

"Find him then, and we shall do our duty." The furies replied, and laughed, as if they all knew a most delicious and cruel jest that was at her expense. The whirl of shadows ascended, rising up to the cave ceiling, and all the way, the sisters continued their mad laugher, till the shadows dissipated like a dark cloud of smoke into thin air.

Down in the pit, next to the crumbling pile of human bones and rotting flesh that had once been Orestes, the furies had left behind the collar and the tangle of chains. I climbed down to retrieve it. When I came back with the relic, I noticed the paleness on Ophelia's face.

"We had no other choice." I tried to explain to her, knowing what she must think.

She did not say anything to me, before turning away.

TBC


End file.
